Climate change could have an aggravating effect on 58% of infectious diseases worldwide, according to a new study.
University of Gothenburg, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Marine Sciences Tristan McKenzie, University of Hawaii Associate Professor of Biology Camilo Mora, and University of Hawaii Geography and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. The study, organized by candidate Hannah von Hammerstein and her colleagues, examined pathogens that have become more dangerous due to climate-related hazards.
Among the 375 human diseases studied, 218 turned out to be affected by climate change. For example, floods can help spread hepatitis. Rising temperatures can extend the lifespan of jaundiced mosquitoes. Droughts can cause hantavirus-affected rodents to spread into settlements.
With climate change affecting more than 1,000 such transmission routes and climate-related hazards increasing worldwide, the research states that it is unrealistic for communities to adapt to all these new disease spread pathways and highlights the need to reduce climate risks.
The research team reviewed more than 77,000 scientific papers for the map they created to examine the risks. Research has found climate hazards that affect the interaction of pathogens and humans in mainly four key areas.
In some cases, climate-related hazards can bring the environments in which animals and organisms naturally live closer to humans.
Climate catastrophes can also alter human behavior patterns, resulting in increased exposure to pathogens. For example, during heat waves, people generally spend more time in the water, which can lead to an increase in waterborne diseases.
In other cases, climate-related hazards increase the likelihood of pathogens coming into contact with humans, creating their ability to pose severe disease hazards in humans. For example, increasing global temperatures can make viruses more resistant to temperatures, making them more resistant to fever in the human body. In addition, a similar situation can create a similar situation by causing fungal pathogens to be more resistant to heat.
Finally, climate-related hazards can reduce the human body’s ability to combat pathogens. Crowded environments, unclean environments, lack of nutrition and many similar effects that can come with climate problems can weaken the human body’s ability to fight diseases in various ways.
In short, climate change is negatively affecting people’s life expectancies, not only in obvious ways, but in many other ways, and the situation is likely to get worse if we don’t actively make an effort.
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