Dengue, hepatitis, malaria or Zika will have their own golden age due to climate change. Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, heavy rains or major droughts will be breeding grounds for pathogens that cause more and better transmission of infectious diseases between humans.. Extreme weather conditions will allow inflammation of 58% of known diseases.
This is confirmed in a recent paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, where a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii sheds light on this phenomenon that many have talked about but no one has yet quantified.
The coronavirus pandemic confirms what the scientific community has been warning about for years: humans are becoming increasingly vulnerable to pathogens.
After the emergence of the new virus, researchers are tired of warning: Global warming, along with the massive use of natural resources by humans, is a powder keg for the spread of viruses, bacteria, fungi or other types of pathogens to the planet.but to what extent is unknown.
“We knew that climate change could affect pathogenic diseases in humans,” says co-author Kira Webster, a PhD student in geography at CSS. It is “troubled” by “the large number of existing case studies that show how vulnerable we are to climate change”.
More than 1000 transmission ways
Researchers chose 10 climate effects to see its relationship to the spread of pathogens. Among those selected were high temperatures, drought, heat waves, wildfires, heavy rains, floods, storms, sea level rise, ocean acidification and desertification.
The scientists combined this information with information from more than 70,000 articles on diseases that plagued humanity in recorded history to determine the relationship between the two phenomena.
What they found is that there is indeed a close connection between them: 218 out of 375 known infectious diseases will be strengthened by climate change and at the same time, insects will have enough potential to be transmitted through more than 1,000 different routes, such as water, air, direct contact, and food..
“Given the far-reaching and widespread consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the enormous vulnerability of our health “It’s because of the release of greenhouse gases,” insists Camilo Mora, professor of geography at the Faculty of Social Sciences (CSS) and lead author of the paper. there are ‘too many diseases and ways of transmission’ to really think we can ‘adapt to climate change’.
To make this wide range of diseases and their relationship to climate change impacts visible, the research team launched a web page (https://camilo-mora.github.io/Diseases/?impact=Positive) that shows each link. to weather hazard, disease, and the most likely route of transmission.
Increased disease spread
But the close relationship between the two dangers to humanity is not the only thing these scientists have discovered and touched upon in their work. The researchers also determined climate effects bring pathogens closer to humans and vice versa. And the limits on which both vectors (mosquitoes, ticks, fleas or birds) and pathogens can live are disappearing. This means that will be more likely to expand beyond their original geographic region and last longer in the ecosystem.
On the other hand, people are getting closer to diseases because with climate change, many people have to move to other countries or migrate to obtain thermal comfort. increased disease spread.
Impacts associated with climate change also favor conditions that allow these microbes to survive and reproduce. For example, during heavy rains, storms, or floods, water can remain stagnant, increasing breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other water-borne pathogens such as leishmaniasis, malaria, or yellow fever.
But the dangers go further, because pathogens can also quickly adapt to new climatic conditions. In this way, it is verified heat waves are reservoirs for microbes High resistance to high temperatures, unable to do so will die.
Climate change is weakening us
And if that’s not enough, climate change is making us weak. Humanity faces very unpleasant conditions to improve its life.
Extreme temperatures cause changes in metabolismhazards associated with climate change stressdamage to infrastructure, exposure to pathogen.
While the vast majority of diseases have been strengthened by climate change, there are others that are weakening. A total of 63 of 286 diseases will have problems spreading or breeding. In the research, they found that even with the possibility of extinction, there will always be at least one or two climate effects that have the potential to ameliorate them.
Reference Links:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01426-1
https://camilo-mora.github.io/Diseases/?impact=Positive