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Scientists worry that climate change is pushing the potential boundaries of a wide range of diseases and their animal and insect carriers northwards into Canada.
The researchers include Justin Wood who contracted Lyme disease 15 years ago and now runs a private lab in Ontario dedicated to detecting tick-related diseases.
Wood says climate change is helping black-legged ticks that carry Lyme disease to expand their habitats in Canada, as well as making them more active and extending their lifespans.
A federal report says there were three-thousand-147 reported cases of Lyme disease in Canada in 2021, up by more than one-thousand per cent from 2011.
Research suggests warming weather has also allowed exotic mosquito species to gain a foothold in parts of Ontario.
In other countries, those mosquitos carry a range of illnesses, such as dengue (DENG'-ghee) and yellow fever.
Victoria Ng (ING'), senior scientific evaluator for the Public Health Agency of Canada, says one exotic species is now reproducing year after year in Windsor, Ontario.
A 2019 report by scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory says other disease risks boosted by climate change include food-borne illnesses that proliferate in warm weather.
The Canadian Press
