International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Article Effects of Climate Change and Heterogeneity of Local Climates on the Development of Malaria Parasite (Plasmodium vivax) in Moscow Megacity Region Varvara Mironova 1, Natalia Shartova 1,*, Andrei Beljaev 2, Mikhail Varentsov 1,3,4 and Mikhail Grishchenko 1 1 Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia;
[email protected] (V.M.);
[email protected] (M.V.);
[email protected] (M.G.) 2 WHO Consultant on Malaria, Former WHO Advisor on malaria, WHO EMRO, Cairo 11371, Egypt;
[email protected] 3 A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, 3 Pyzhyovskiy Pereulok, Moscow 119017, Russia 4 Research Computing Center, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +7-(495)-939-2140 Received: 28 January 2019; Accepted: 23 February 2019; Published: 26 February 2019 Abstract: The article presents the results of a spatio-temporal analysis of the changes of the favorability of climatic conditions for the transmission of vivax malaria in the Moscow megacity and its surroundings during the period from 1977 to 2016. Using the historical temperature records at urban and rural weather stations, we calculated the key indicators of climate favorability for malaria transmission, viz. the sum of effective temperatures, the duration of the season of effective infectiveness, and a new integral index of climate favorability. We demonstrated a dramatic increase of all three indicators, which accelerated after 1984, and a high spatial heterogeneity among them. Due to the urban heat island effect, the degree of climatic favorability is especially high in the densely urbanized areas of Moscow megacity compared with the suburban and rural areas.