Extreme heat and cold, floods and drought aggravated 58% of diseases caused by pathogens such as dengue, hepatitis, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, malaria, Lyme disease
Climate change will have, and is already having, an important one impact on human health and studies on the subject have been underway for years even if only now, when the whole world is experiencing the consequences of extreme heat, is there greater attention. The Threat to Humanity Broad is now a large new work published on Nature Climate Change
has linked floods, heat waves and droughts, storms, rising sea levels, fires to worsening infectious diseases. In particular, according to coordinated scientists dto Camilo Morastatistical biologist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, climate risks have aggravated 58% of human infectious diseases.
The author of the study is also a victim of climate change
Scholars have observed more than 1,000 ways in which the problems of climate pollution have led – albeit with different transmission vectors depending on the pathogens – to the aggravation or greater spread of many infectious diseases. In detail, after the analysis of 3,213 specific cases, it emerged that 58% of 375 infectious diseases – or 218 – were aggravated by climate change. Only nine have faded. Camilo Mora points out that it is not a matter of forecasts: these things have already happened. And he also tells a personal case. About five years ago, his home in rural Colombia was flooded – for the first time in his memory, water had entered the living room, creating an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Mora contracted the chikungunya, a nasty virus spread by mosquito bites. survived, but years after the infection still suffers from pain in the bones.
The diseases that spread the most
The climatic risks are bringing pathogens closer to people: L‘rise in climate and rainfallfor example, they have been associated with the expansion of the range of vectors such as mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, birds and various mammals linked to diseases such as
dengue, chikungunya, plague, Lyme disease, Nile virus, Zika, trypanosomiasis, echinococcosis, and malaria
just to name a few.
At the same time, climate change is bringing people closer to pathogens because migrations due to extreme climatic events have consequences. The Heat waves, for example, have been associated with increasing cases of various water-borne diseases as associated infections Vibrio (a kind of bacteria), primary amoebic meningoencephalitis And gastroenteritis. Storms, floods and sea level rise have caused human displacements implicated in cases of leptospirosis, cryptosporidiosis, Lassa fever, giardiasis, gastroenteritis, legionnaires’ diseases, cholera, salmonellosis, shigellosis, pneumonia, typhus, hepatitis, respiratory diseases and skin diseases.
Furthermore, climate change has improved the environment for the reproduction of some pathogens, extending their life cycle and consequently increasing the reproduction period. Storms, heavy rains and floods have created stagnant water, increasing breeding and growing grounds for mosquitoes and the array of pathogens they transmit (for example, leishmaniasis, malaria, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, St. Louis encephalitis)
Finally, the stress of exposure to dangerous conditions has rdeveloped the human ability to cope with pathogens. The drought, for example, has favored poor hygiene responsible for cases of trachoma, chlamydia, cholera, conjunctivitis, Cryptosporidium, diarrheal diseases, dysentery, Escherichia coli, Giardia, Salmonella, scabies and typhoid fever.
Limitations of the study
The expert on climate and public health Kristie Ebi of the University of Washington, consulted by Stat has some doubts about how the conclusions were drawn and about some of the methods in the study. It is an established fact that the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has led to more frequent and intense extreme weather conditions, and research has shown that weather patterns are associated with many health problems, she said. However, the correlation is not causal. The authors did not discuss to what extent the climate risks examined changed over the time period of the study and to what extent any changes were attributed to climate change. Aaron BernsteinActing director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health argues that the study places the right emphasis on global warming and health, especially because the loss of natural habitat drives animals and their diseases to get closer to man.
August 9, 2022 (change August 9, 2022 | 14:23)
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