TResearchers have warned that there will be at least 15,000 instances where viruses will jump between species in the next 50 year. This is because of the climate crisis, which has helped fuel a potentially catastrophic spread of disease.
Many animal species will have to relocate to new areas as the planet heats up. They will carry their parasites and other pathogens, which can spread between species that have never interacted before. This will increase the risk of zoonotic spreadover, which is when viruses transfer from animals and people to humans, potentially triggering another pandemic like that of Covid-19.
Gregory Albery, a Georgetown University professor of disease ecology and coauthor of the paper, said that as the world changes, so will the face of disease. Published in Nature. This work is more evidence that the next decade will be not only hotter but also sicker.
We have discovered a novel and potentially deadly mechanism for disease emergence. This could pose a threat to the health of animals in future. It will likely also have implications for us.
Albery stated that climate changes are causing ecosystems to shake to the core and causing interactions that could lead to the spread of viruses. He stated that even a drastic response to global warming now will not be enough to stop the spread of viruses.
This is happening, and it’s not preventable, even in the best climate change scenarios. He said that we must put in place measures to build infrastructure for health to protect animals and humans.
According to the research paper, at least 10,000 viruses capable of infecting humans exist in wild animals. These cross-infections were rare until recently. However, as more habitat has been lost for agriculture and urban expansion, more people are coming into contact with infected animal species.
Climate change is increasing this problem by helping spread disease between species that were never meant to meet. The study predicted the geographic range shifts in 3,139 mammal species as a result of climatic and landscape changes up to 2070. It also found that there will be at most 15,000 cross-species transmission events for one or more viruses even under relatively low levels of global warming.
Because bats can travel long distances, they will be responsible for most of the disease spread. A Covid pandemic is believed to have started in Wuhan, China, when an infected bat was found. Previous research has estimatedThere are approximately 3,200 coronavirus strains that are already present in bat populations.
The new research warns that climate-driven disease is not a risk. Surprisingly, this ecological transition may be already underway, and keeping global warming below 2C by the end of the century will not reduce viral sharing, according to the paper.
High elevation areas in Africa, Asia and the Middle East are where most of the disease risk lies. However, it is difficult to track the progress of some viruses due to a lack of monitoring. Colin Carlson, a co-author of this research, stated that there is a significant and mostly unobserved shift in ecosystems.
We don’t keep an eye on them, and that makes pandemic risk all too real. Climate change is creating countless hotspots for zoonotic risks right in our backyard. We need to create health systems that can handle this.
Experts who were not part of the research said that the study highlighted the urgent need for improved processes to prevent future pandemics and to phase out the use fossil fuels that are causing climate crisis.
These findings show that pathogen spillover must be prevented, according to Aaron Bernstein, interim head of the Harvard University’s center for climate, health and the global environment.
While vaccines, drugs, and tests are important, without major investments in primary prevention, namely habitat conservation and strict regulation of wildlife trade and improved livestock biosecurity as examples, we will find ourselves in an ever more likely world with infectious disease outbreaks.
EcoHealth Alliance president Peter Daszak said that, while human interference in landscapes has been recognized as a risk factor for disease for some time, the new research is a significant step forward in understanding how climate change will fuel the spread.
Even more alarming is the possibility that we are already in this process, something I didn’t expect. This should be a wake-up call for public healthcare, he said. When you consider the likely effects of climate change, and pandemic disease is one of them, there are trillions of possible impacts.
This paper finally reveals the hidden cost of climate changes and the grim future it will bring for wildlife and humans.
