Climate change will lead to the spread of thousands of new viruses to animal species by 2070 – and this is likely to increase the risk of transmitting infectious diseases from animals to humans, according to new research. .
This is particularly true in Africa and Asia, continents that have been centers of deadly diseases from humans to animals or vice versa in recent decades, including influenza, HIV, Ebola and corovirus.
The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Thursday ება used the model to study how viruses could migrate and share more than 3,000 mammal species over the next 50 years if global warming were 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). . Recent Search Shows is possible.
They found that the virus species spread more than 4,000 times to mammals alone. Birds and marine animals were not included in the study.
The researchers said that not all viruses spread to humans or become pandemics through corovirus, but the number of virus species increases the risk of them spreading to humans.
The study highlights two global crises – climate change and the spread of infectious diseases – as the world struggles to do its best to address them.
Previous research has looked at how deforestation and extinction and trade in wild animals have led to the spread of disease among animals and humans, but less research has been done on how climate change may affect the transmission of this species. of the disease, the researchers said. at a media briefing on Wednesday.
“There’s not much talk about climate in the context of zoonoses,” diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans, said Colin Carlson, co-author of the study and assistant professor of biology at Georgetown. University. “Our research … combines the two most pressing global crises we have.”
Experts on climate change and infectious diseases agree that global warming is likely to increase the risk of new viruses.
Daniele R. Brooks, a biologist at the University of Nebraska State Museum and co-author of The Stockholm Paradigm: Climate Change and Emerging Disease, said the study confirms the risk of climate change in terms of higher risk of infectious diseases. .
“This particular contribution is an extremely conservative assessment of the potential spread of infectious diseases caused by climate change,” Brooks said.
Aaron Bernstein, pediatrician and acting director of Har Chan University’s Chan Chan School of Public Health Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, whose study confirms long-standing doubts about the effect of warming on the emergence of infectious sick. .
“Particularly remarkable is the fact that research has shown that these collisions can happen more frequently and in areas where a lot of people live,” Bernstein said.
The study’s co-author Gregory Albert, a disease ecologist at Georgetown University, said that while the emergence of a climate-induced infectious disease is already happening, the world needs to do more to study and prepare.
“It’s not an avoidance, even in the best of climate change scenarios,” Alberti said.
Carlson, who is also the author of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said we need to reduce greenhouse gases and phase out fossil fuels to reduce the risk of spreading infectious diseases.
Jarron Brown, co-organizing director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, a climate justice group, said the study highlighted the climate injustices experienced by people living in Africa and Asia.
“African and Asian countries are more at risk of spreading the virus, which again reflects how those leading the crisis are doing the least to carry out climate change,” Brown said.
Source: Huffpost
