More than half of human diseases caused by pathogens have been aggravated by hazards associated with climate change, study finds
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are vectors for diseases such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya, which have been aggravated by heatwaves, wildfires and floods.Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are vectors for diseases such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya, which have been aggravated by heatwaves, wildfires and floods.
“We are opening a Pandora’s Box of disease,” said Camilo Mora, a geographer at the University of Hawaii who led the research. “Because of climate change, we have all these triggers all over the world, over 1,000 of them. There are diseases out there just waiting to be unleashed. It’s like we are poking a stick at a lion – at some point the lion will come and bite us in the ass.”
Mora said there were probably multiple ways that the climate crisis worsened the spread of Covid, such as habitat disturbances by fire and flood that dislodge wildlife, such as disease-carrying bats, into new areas closer to humans. Mora said he has himself suffered from ongoing aches in his joints after contracting chikungunya during an outbreak in Colombia a few years ago that followed a period of intense rainfall that saw a boom in mosquito numbers.
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