More than half of all human infectious illnesses on record have been aggravated by the growing consequences of climate change caused by greenhouse gases. These include Lyme disease, West Nile virus, hantavirus, typhoid, HIV/AIDS, and influenza. A new, groundbreaking report has drawn this gloomy conclusion after reviewing over 70,000 scientific articles to identify how different climatic dangers have affected 375 deadly illnesses known to have affected humanity. On Monday, a study by a group of 11 scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa appeared in the scholarly journal Nature Climate Change.
Scientists have known for a long time that climate change is amplifying infectious illnesses, making them more common and more deadly. The current report, however, puts a numerical value on the mounting danger, coming to the startling conclusion that 218 out of 375 known infectious illnesses have been made worse by one or more climatic risks related with greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite its worrisome nature, the lead scientists behind the study emphasized that assessment is cautious. According to him, the research relies only on examples in which there is evidence between climatic threats and infectious illness. By sifting through the current scientific literature on various infections (viral, bacterial, fungal, animal-borne, and more), the study team concluded that warmer temperatures had the most detrimental influence on 160 distinct illnesses. 122 illnesses were impacted by extreme precipitation, which was then followed by floods, droughts, and storms.
In contrast, 63 disorders were shown to be alleviated by climate risks; however, 54 of them were concurrently made worse by other climate effects. The research is timely, given the globe is still in the midst of a COVID-19 epidemic that has killed 6.4 million people and infected over half a billion, according to WHO. Additionally, the new article shows evidence that climatic influences, particularly variations in precipitation and temperature, have had contrasting effects on the spread of the illness.
