The Wildlife Conservation Society has recently warned of the increased risk of the spread of disease from wild animals to humans due to issues with climate change. According to their report, their are 12 zoonoses (animal-borne diseases) that could spread if the climate gets warmer. This information has prompted the Wildlife Conservation Society to advocate establishing some type of global early warning network that would make use of Western science and the knowledge acquired by indiginous people. Evidence of spreading zoonoses due to warmer climate has been documented in the spread of lyme disease moving northward from the US into Canada. Since there are fewer frozen nights in the northern US and in Canada, the ticks are able to survive further north. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change released a report last year affirming that global climate change will in fact change the distribution of animals carrying diseases.
Other zoonoses that will be affected because of climate change are avian influenza, Rift Valley fever, and Ebola. Also, the population of bacteria that causes cholera rises with water temperature, and can be incubated with shellfish. Another way that disease could spread is through water scarcity; if there is a water shortage wild and domesticated animals might share drinking pools, leading to the emergence of new viral strains. However, the WCS has also reported that climate change could have to positive effect of lessening the prospects of some zoonoses. In any case, it has become inportant to observe ecosystems, because a minor disturbance can have an effect on an entire ecosystem. It is also important to rely on the knowledge of the indigenous people, since they hunt animals they are usually the first to realize there may be something wrong.
I think climate change might have the effect of worsening the spread of some diseases, but also might have an effect against them. For example there is a theory that we tend to get sick more in the winter becuase we get less sunlight, which is vital to the production of vitamin D in our bodies which protects our immune system. In a warmer climate we may also have more resistence to disease.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7657415.stm
1 comment:
The epidemiological consequences are frightening when one thinks about it...not exactly my cup of tea but it is the cold hard truth, and we are taking responsibility for our actions now, albeit inadvertently. Think of it, then, as the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--we've already seen Hunger and War, so now comes Pestilence. Death comes very soon on the heels of Disease.
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