“Potentially catastrophic”: Climate crisis may foster future pandemics | Environment

TThe climate crisis has contributed to the spread of “potentially catastrophic” diseases that endanger animals and people and risk further pandemics, with at least 15,000 cases of viruses flying between species over the next 50 years. I have.

As the earth heats up, many animal species are forced to move to new areas to find suitable conditions. They bring their parasites and pathogens with them and spread them among species that have never previously interacted with them. This increases the risk of so-called “zoonoses spillover”, in which the virus can be transmitted from animals to humans and cause another pandemic of Covid-19 scale.

“As the world changes, so does the aspect of disease,” said Gregory Albury, an expert in disease ecology at Georgetown University and co-author of the paper. Published in Nature.. “This study provides more controversial evidence that the coming decades will not only get hotter, but also get sick.

“We have demonstrated a novel and potentially catastrophic mechanism for the emergence of disease that could threaten the health of animals in the future and affect us as well.”

Climate change is “fundamental-shaking the ecosystem,” Albury said, causing interactions between species that are likely to already spread the virus. He said that even drastic action to deal with global heating is not enough to stop the risk of spillover events.

“This is fortunate. Even the best climate change scenarios cannot be prevented. We need to take steps to build a health infrastructure to protect the animal and human populations,” he said.

According to research papers, at least 10,000 viruses that can infect humans “quietly” circulate in wildlife populations. Until relatively recently, such crossover infections were rare, but because more habitats were destroyed due to agriculture and urban expansion. More people are now in contact with infected animals..

Climate change exacerbates this problem by helping to circulate the disease between species that previously did not encounter each other. This study predicts changes in the geographic range of 3,139 mammals due to changes in climate and land use by 2070, and at least one or more viruses during this period, even under relatively low levels of global warming. We have discovered that 15,000 cross-species transmission events occur. time.

Bats make up the majority of the epidemic of this disease because of their ability to travel long distances. Bats infected in Wuhan, China, are the suspected cause of the onset of the Covid pandemic. Previous studies estimated There are approximately 3,200 strains of coronavirus that are already migrating between bat populations.

The risk of climate-related illness is not future, new studies warn. “Surprisingly, this ecological transition may already be underway, and maintaining warming below 2 ° C within a century does not reduce future virus sharing.” The paper states.

Most of the risk of illness is set to be concentrated in high altitude areas of Africa and Asia, but lack of surveillance makes it difficult to track the progression of a particular virus. “There is this monumental and rarely observed change occurring within the ecosystem,” said Colin Carlson, another co-author of the study.

“We are not keeping an eye on them, and it makes the danger of a pandemic a problem for everyone. Climate change creates a myriad of hotspots for the risk of zoonosis in our backyard. We need to build a medical system that is ready for that. “

Experts not involved in the study emphasized the urgent need to improve processes designed to prevent future pandemics and phase out the use of fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis. He said he did.

Aaron Bernstein, Interim Director of the Center for Climate, Health and Global Environment at Harvard University, said:

“Vaccines, medicines and tests are essential, but only the rich, for example, unless we make significant investments in the prevention of primary pandemics: habitat conservation, strict regulation of wildlife trade, and improved livestock biosecurity. You can put yourself in a world that you can tolerate. You are more likely to develop an infectious disease. “

Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to pandemic prevention, said that human intervention in landscapes has long been understood as a risk of illness, but new research is a “significant step forward” in understanding the climate. The changes mentioned to represent the spread of the virus.

“More worrisome is that we may already be involved in this process. What I didn’t expect is a true awakening call for public health,” he said. Told. “In fact, given the potential impacts of climate change, we’re talking about trillions of dollars in potential impacts if pandemic disease is one of them.

“This hidden cost of climate change is finally revealed, and the vision this paper presents to us is a very ugly future for wildlife and people.”