Climate change has an impact on over 200 human pathogenic diseases: Study

As the world grapples with Covid19 and monkeypox a significant study published in the journal Nature Climate Change has revealed that more than 200 human pathogenic diseases have been aggravated by climate change and could only worsen in years to comeThe research found that more than 58 per cent or 218 out of 375 of known human pathogenic diseases such as dengue hepatitis pneumonia malaria Zika and more had been affected at some point by at least one climatic hazard via 1006 unique pathways Climatic hazards were also implicated in the increasing capacity of pathogens to cause more severe illnessGiven the extensive and pervasive consequences of the pandemic it was truly scary to discover the massive health vulnerability resulting as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions said Camilo Mora geography professor in the College of Social Sciences CSS at University of Hawaii at Manoa There are just too many diseases and pathways of transmission for us to think that we can truly adapt to climate change It highlights the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally Mora addedThe researchers carried out a systemic search for empirical examples about the impacts of 10 climatic hazards sensitive to greenhouse gas GHG emissions on each known human pathogenic disease These hazards included warming drought heatwaves wildfires extreme precipitation floods storms sea level rise ocean biogeochemical change and land cover change The team then reviewed more than 70000 scientific papers for empirical examples about each possible combination of a climatic hazard impacting each of the known diseasesThe research revealed that warming precipitation floods drought storm land cover change ocean climate change fires heatwaves and sea level changes were all found to influence diseases triggered by viruses bacteria animals fungi protozoans plants and chromists Pathogenic diseases were primarily transmitted by vectors Case examples were also found for waterborne airborne direct contact and foodborne transmission pathways Climatic hazards are bringing pathogens closer to people Numerous climatic hazards are increasing the area and duration of environmental suitability facilitating the spatial and temporal expansion of vectors and pathogens the findings showedWarming and precipitation changes for instance were associated with range expansion of vectors such as mosquitoes ticks fleas birds and several mammals implicated in outbreaks by viruses bacteria animals and protozoans including dengue chikungunya plague Lyme disease West Nile virus Zika trypanosomiasis echinococcosis and malaria to name a fewHeatwaves have been associated with rising cases of several waterborne diseases such as Vibrio a kind of bacteriaassociated infections primary amoebic meningoencephalitis and gastroenteritis Storms floods and sea level rise caused human displacements implicated in cases of leptospirosis cryptosporidiosis Lassa fever giardiasis gastroenteritis Legionnaires diseases cholera salmonellosis shigellosis pneumonia typhoid hepatitis respiratory disease and skin diseases among others revealed the studyClimatic hazards have also diminished human capacity to cope with pathogens by altering body conditions like adding stress from exposure to hazardous conditions We knew that climate change can affect human pathogenic diseases said study coauthor Kira Webster Researchers also found that while the great majority of diseases were aggravated by climatic hazards some were diminished 63 out of 286 diseases Warming for example appears to have reduced the spread of viral diseases probably related to unsuitable conditions for the virus or because of a stronger immune system in warmer conditionsAlso read Ring vaccination method may not be effective in containing monkeypox infections StudyThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever