Is Climate Change To Blame For This Year's West Nile Outbreak?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there have been over 1100 reported cases of West Nile virus disease in the US this year, including 42 deaths. If these numbers seem high, they are - in fact, it's the highest number of reported cases since West Nile was first detected in the US in 1999, and West Nile season has just begun. Given that the peak of West Nile epidemics generally occurs in mid August, and it takes a few weeks for people to fall ill, the CDC expects that number to rise dramatically. But why now? Though the CDC doesn't have an official response to that question, the director of the CDC's Vector-Borne Infectious Disease Division said that 'unusually warm weather' may be to blame. So far, 2012 is the hottest year on record in the United States according to the National Climatic Data Center, with record-breaking temperatures and ...