Dengue fever will spread in the southern United States, southern Europe, and some previously unaffected areas in Africa, before the end of this decade.

This opinion was expressed by the chief scientist at the World Health Organization, Jeremy Farrar, who noted that this will happen against the backdrop of rising temperatures, creating favorable conditions for the breeding of the mosquito that transmits the disease.

The expert said in a conversation with Reuters: "We need to prepare countries for how to cope with the additional pressures [on the health system] that will arise in the future in many large cities."

He mentioned that dengue fever can spread and become endemic in parts of the United States, Europe, and Africa, regions where the incidence of the disease remains limited so far.

As the agency points out, dengue fever has long been a significant problem for most countries in Asia and Latin America, where approximately 20,000 people die from the disease each year.

However, since 2000, global infection rates have increased eightfold. In 2022, the number of officially recorded cases reached 4.2 million, while many cases of the illness were not reported by health authorities, as the fever is often asymptomatic.

In addition to climate change, the main contributing factors to the spread of the disease include increased population movement and intense urbanization.

Reuters notes that Bangladesh is currently experiencing one of the largest outbreaks of dengue fever, with already more than a thousand people having died from the fever.