Other Consequences
In 2004, at least 13 people in the state of Pará died from rabid vampire bat bites inflicted as they slept. In 2005, another 23 died and over 1,300 were bitten in Maranhão. Though these deaths may seem unconnected to climate change, they may be. Deforestation was one possible cause.
At the time, some scientists attributed their deaths to bats displaced from their homes by cutting forest and to colonies of bats swollen by feasting on the cattle kept by people.
Another study in the Peruvian Amazon found the mosquitoes that cause malaria bite hundreds of times more often in deforested areas than in intact forest. But rabies and malaria aren’t the only possible health effects of deforestation.
Smoke from burning forests causes respiratory illnesses among people nearby. In 1997, visits to doctors for respiratory ailments increased 20 times during the Alta Floresta fires. Some of the respiratory irritants are also greenhouse gases. These illnesses cost money, too. In 1998, the Brazilian government spent US$11 million for the treatment of respiratory problems in the Amazon.
If, as current computer models suggest, drought becomes more common in the Amazon, traditional communities of rural and indigenous peoples may have to deal with scarce and unsafe water, food shortages, and other difficulties.
