Crypto News: Warmer oceans and deadly outbreaks

Hi, it's Marcelo in Lima, where we are going through the worst dengue outbreak on record. The reason behind it has implications for the rest of the world as climate change warms up the globe. But first ...

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Peru's Pacific Ocean is 7 degrees Fahrenheit (and 4 degrees Celsius) warmer right now than usual. That leads to more evaporation, triggering rains and flooding that has killed dozens this year in Peru's desert coast.

But that's not all. The flooding also creates good conditions for dengue-carrying mosquitoes to reproduce. This happens for two main reasons: There's naturally pooled water around and flooding collapses water and sewage systems. That forces people to store water in buckets, offering even more breeding spaces for mosquitoes.

"It's a perfect storm," says Antonio Quispe, a Peruvian epidemiologist and former health ministry official.

While this particular weather pattern — known as El Niño — is temporary, the rising ocean temperatures offer a glimpse of just one of the effects of climate change.

So far this year, 121 people have died from dengue in Peru. In total, more than 86,000 cases have been reported, according to official statistics. Both numbers are already higher than in all of 2017, the last time Peru experienced El Niño, which also triggered a huge dengue outbreak.

"Rain raises the risks of a dengue outbreak in a society that is already prone to having large outbreaks," says Victor Zamora, a former Peruvian health minister.

El Niño starts in the ocean waters off the coast of Peru and Ecuador, but its effects can be felt worldwide, impacting the global supply of coffee, palm oil, fish meal among other items. The world is bracing for a global El Niño later this year, but the Pacific Ocean has been warming up since the beginning of 2023.

Peru's dengue cases are concentrated in its dense desert coast, which over the past century has seen massive population growth that has overwhelmed policymakers. That has led to urban slums that have never had drinking water or sewage infrastructure.

Those slums are prone to dengue even without increased rain. Peru sees dengue cases every year in its poorest areas.

Even with rising case numbers, Peru has seen more dengue deaths than expected. But the country's hospitals are overwhelmed. Peru has the lowest public health spending among Latin America's largest economies. The consequences of an underfunded health care system were very visible during the pandemic, when Peru had the world's largest number of deaths per capita.

Peruvian health minister Rosa Gutierrez has pledged to transfer 50 million soles ($14 million) to combat dengue. Health authorities say the situation is under control and that cases should start falling in the next few weeks. That doesn't rule out another record outbreak in the near future, however.

"Let's work to bring water and sewage systems to our slums, so that we can avoid repeating this story year after year," Gutierrez said last week. — Marcelo Rochabrun

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Texas Republicans are trying to curb the oil-rich state's wind and solar power industries, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Ask us anything — well, anything health-related that is! Each week we're picking a reader question and putting it to our network of experts. So get in touch via AskPrognosis@bloomberg.net.