Tropical diseases will come to us in Bulgaria within our lifetime. This was told to “Telegraph“ by the Chief State Health Inspector Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev.
“Globally, one of the major threats is climate change. It changes many things. It changes biology, it changes species”, he pointed out.
"I see how tropical diseases are moving further and further north and we are starting to encounter them more and more often. This is not a quick process, but it is a fact. Some may not accept it, but chikungunya fever, Zika fever, fever I don't know what kind... Once upon a time, this was only in the tropics, now it is among us, especially in Southern Europe. They will inevitably appear in Bulgaria,“ said Assoc. Prof. Kunchev.
According to Assoc. Prof. Kunchev, no matter how fast the process is, things are accelerating.
“You see what temperatures we reach in the summer season and this affects the species. I read articles about how fish are changing in the Black Sea, how some arthropod carriers are changing. We also used to read about tiger mosquitoes only in textbooks, but now we have them and see them in Europe. It is crazy to claim that nothing is happening and there is no such thing as global warming and climate change“, the specialist noted.
“The biggest threats to our health come first and foremost from our activities and from carelessness, if we are talking specifically about Bulgaria. This concerns mostly hospital infections. Secondly, I don't know why, but the Balkans are very fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Deep intentions are sought in everything – someone wants to kill us, someone wants to eavesdrop on us, someone wants to monitor us... As if we are the most important in the world. But this is there and people succumb to it. Plus, the barrier to accepting information is very low in our country. We accept everything we read on social networks as truth. We have no critical thought to sift through and think that some sites do not sound serious and write whatever they want“, concluded Assoc. Prof. Kunchev.