Thermometers around the world mark historical records. Iran, for example, experienced a heat sensation last Sunday over 65.5°C, a heat that is at the limit of what the human body can withstand. Climate change is a threat in many ways. One of them, according to the scientific community, is associated with the growth of infectious diseases around the world.
The climate catastrophe is so severe that more than 20 million people are forced to leave their homes every year. But global warming does not only lead to the displacement of people. Animals move around the planet to adapt to an increasingly hostile planet. And with them the diseases they transmit.
“It’s not just something from the future,” said Neil Vora, a physician at the nonprofit Conservation International. Associated Press. “Climate change is already here. People are suffering and dying right now.”
Human activity has complicated everything. Deforestation, mining and agriculture are destroying deserts around the world. Deforestation, for example, continues to increase despite global agreements between countries. The animal species on which people depend for their livelihood is declining. And at the same time, forced to live in smaller areas, creation of new foci of disease transmission.
Climate change leads to serious diseases
For example, avian flu spreads more easily among wildlife because rising sea levels and other factors cause some bird species to migrate. At the end of last year, 50,000 minks on a farm in Galicia, Spain were killed. after laboratory tests confirmed that the animals had contracted the bird flu virus known as H5N1. The case raised fears of a new pandemic.
It’s not just the heat. Periods of extreme droughts and floods, as well as the effects of climate change, create conditions conducive to the spread of other diseases. Cases of cholera, for example, increase dramatically during the rainy season in South Asia, when floods contaminate drinking water.
The United Nations warned last December that about 30 countries had reported cases of cholera. In the previous five years, on average, fewer than 20 countries reported such infections.
“The situation is unprecedented because not only are we seeing more outbreaks, but these outbreaks are larger and more deadly than those we have seen in recent years,” said Philippe Barbosa, head of the Cholera and Diarrheal Disease Epidemic Team. time of the World Health Organization.
Warmer winters and milder autumns and springs allow pathogen vectors to remain active longer throughout the year. Cases of diseases associated with mosquitoes, ticks and fleas tripled in the US between 2004 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published PA.
next pandemic
More than half of all pathogens known to cause disease in humans may worsen with climate change, according to a study published in Nature last year. And everything tends to get worse over time.
The WHO warns that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause an estimated 250,000 additional deaths per year, linked only to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress.
“I think we have grossly underestimated not only how much climate change is already changing disease risks, but how many types of risks are changing,” said Colin Carlson, a global change biologist at Georgetown University. Pennsylvania.
The COVID-19 pandemic, he added, is an example of how quickly a disease can spread around the planet. Also, how they can change healthcare systems around the world. “I think in terms of the threats of epidemics and pandemics, there is something to worry about.”
Source: Hiper Textual
