Global warming has serious implications for all aspects of human life, including elevated sea levels, crop failure and famine, changes in global rainfall patterns, changes to plant and animal populations, and serious health effects. Especially Infectious diseases are global entities that depend dynamically on the interaction between the population and the existing regional climate.
The global warming requires a basic understanding of the greenhouse effect.
In nature, the greenhouse effect is responsible for elevating the Earth’s temperature, making it possible for life to thrive. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrocarbons, per fluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.
Population size and global warming are related because human activities increase production of greenhouse gases. This effect culminates in global warming and ecosystem.
Severe weather events may result in injuries and fatalities, and heat waves can cause direct effects such as dehydration heat asthenia, hear exhaustion, heat stroke, and respiratory disease.
Earth system changes increasing climate variability, increased rainfall in some areas and drought in others, and more frequent severe weather events, have considerable potential to affect human health. Impact of Climate change on Public Health is difficult to quantify the exact risk. Particularly, about infectious diseases, the impact depends on the complex interaction between the human host population and the causative infectious agent.
Important human factors include crowding, food scarcity, poverty, and local environmental decline. Some health effects of climate change may result from indirect impacts on natural ecosystems

Ecosystem changes can increase the rage, seasonality, and infectivity of some vector borne disease. For example, altered climatic conditions can change the habitats of vectors such as mosquitoes or rats and affect the parasites they carry. Changing the abundance and geographic range of carriers and parasites could shift the seasonal occurrence of many infectious diseases and cause them to spread. Heavy rain falls and related factors are associated with water borne disease outbreaks, and these may increase the risk of food borne illness. Higher levels of carbon dioxide and heat may promote production of allergens by such plants as ragweed, and warmer weather may promote the formation of groundlevel ozone. Humidity combined with heat facilitates fungal growth and transmission

The World Health Organization estimated, in its "World Health Report 2002", that climate change was estimated to be responsible in 2000 for approximately 2.4% of worldwide diarrhoea, and 6% of malaria in some middle-income countries . However, small changes, against a noisy background of ongoing changes in other causal factors, are hard to identify.

Clearly, global warming will cause changes in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. The ability of mankind to react or adapt is dependent upon the magnitude and speed of the change. The outcome will also depend on our ability to recognize epidemics early, to contain them effectively, to provide appropriate treatment, and to commit resources to prevention and research
This article will introduce the concepts of global warming, focus on the impact of climate changes on human health and infectious disease, and present future strategy in KCDC

• Jong Koo Lee(Director, Korea Centers for Disease control & Prevention)