DEADLY DOZEN: Bird flu is among a dozen diseases that may get worse as the climate changes, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Image: ©WILLIAM KARESH
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Bird flu, cholera, Ebola, plague and tuberculosis are just a few of the diseases likely to spread and get worse as a result of climate change, according to a report released yesterday by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). To prevent such ailments from becoming as destructive as the "black death" (which wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century) or the flu pandemic of 1918 (which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, including between 500,000 and 675,000 people in the U.S.), WCS suggests monitoring wildlife to detect signs of these pathogens before a major outbreak.
"We will see a shift in the geographic distribution of diseases, with certain areas having reduced prevalence and other areas increasing," says veterinarian William Karesh, WCS's vice president of global health programs. "We are calling for increased attention and action in developing global monitoring networks to look at a wide variety of infectious diseases in a wide variety of wildlife since they are such sensitive indicators of the health of the systems in which they live."
The deadly dozen include:
Bird flu: H5N1 infections are becoming the rule rather then the exception in farmed poultry worldwide, and even wild birds are showing signs of infection more often. It has forced the culling of millions of ducks, chickens and geese globally—and has killed more than 240 people—resulting in at least $100 billion in economic losses.
Babesiosis: This malarialike disease carried by ticks is endemic in the tropics, but has cropped up everywhere from Italy to Long Island, N.Y. It is rare in humans at present and seldom deadly (treatable with antibiotics) but may become more problematic as the globe warms, providing more welcoming environments.
Cholera: This bacterium thrives in warmer waters and causes diarrhea so severe that it can kill within a week. Without improved sanitation, rising global temperatures will increase deadly outbreaks.
Ebola: This virus is lethal to humans and other primates, and has no cure. In addition, it is unclear where the disease, which causes fever, vomiting and internal or external bleeding, comes from—though scientists suspect fruit bats. What is clear is that outbreaks tend to follow unusual downpours or droughts in central Africa—a likely result of climate change.
Parasites: Many spread easily between humans, livestock and wildlife. Higher average temperatures and more rainfall will help many parasites, such as the tiny worms known as Baylisascaris procyonis that are spread by raccoons, to thrive in the wild before finding a host.
Lyme disease: This bacterium-caused disease will spread as climate changes extend the ranges of the ticks that carry it.
Plague: Changes in temperature and rainfall will affect rodent populations globally as well as the infected fleas they carry.
"Red tides": Poisonous algal blooms in coastal waters may increase as a result of warming temperatures or changes in littoral sea life.
Rift Valley fever: A newly emergent virus, carried by mosquitoes that causes fever and weakness, has spread quickly through Africa and the Middle East, killing people, along with camels, cattle, goats and sheep.
Sleeping sickness: Global warming will change the distribution of the tsetse fly that carries the disease, now infecting more than 300,000 people yearly in Africa. Victims become lethargic and may suffer severe swelling of the lymph nodes.
Tuberculosis: Both the human and livestock varieties of TB are likely to increase, particularly the latter as droughts bring livestock and wildlife into closer proximity at watering holes.
Yellow fever: Mosquitoes spread this disease, which causes fever and jaundicelike symptoms, between wildlife and humans, and will likely spread into new areas as the climate changes.
To counter outbreaks, monitoring efforts for yellow fever in South American monkeys have already helped target health interventions and vaccinations.
And the Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance (GAINS)—an international effort to monitor bird flu in wild and domestic birds—has helped map how the disease spreads, and helped prevent a major outbreak in humans.
Karesh and his colleagues argue that this bird flu network should be transformed into a broader effort that surveys all wildlife diseases. "The GAINS mapping and database systems can be easily adapted to any disease in any species," Karesh says. "In fact, the database is blind to which species or disease is entered into the system."
That might give advance warning of impending public health risks, such as encroaching Lyme disease or an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. As it stands, those risks are increasing as a result of human encroachment on remaining wild landscapes, mining and logging, and rapid global transport such as jet travel that promote the speedy spread of disease as does global trade in both livestock and wildlife.
"Most microbes and macroparasites have preferred temperatures and moisture levels for viability," Karesh notes. "Climate change affects both hosts and vectors and thus disrupts the balance that developed over thousands of years."
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11 Comments
Add CommentYou can't be serious. Was a study done to support any of the rampant speculation in this article? If so, I didn't see it referenced. Is the WCS that bad at writing reports? The reasoning to support the postulate of an increase in Ebola was symptomatic of the problems with this article. It was also funny: It is unclear where the disease comes from, or what the host is, but what is clear (or not) is that outbreaks "tend to follow" unusual downpours (or is it droughts...oh wait, it's both!). That's about as clear as suggesting that Ebola tends to follow populations where human beings eat food (or drink water...oh wait, it's both!).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently, global warming is a hoax. What has recently been discovered is sunspots on the sun, which is causing our climate change. The only problem is, we must find solutions on how to cope with this in the future and our planet. The only annoying thing, is that you get people that are too wealthy and you get people with an environment that they are raised in poverty. Most people do not have access to resources, because you get these people taking it away from these people. These diseases can occur because of malnutrition or it is something that we do wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a scary headline, sure to elicit fear, as intended. I might be fearful too if I believed anthropogenic global warming (AGW) existed. I don't believe it. Climate alarmists assure us that the debate on AGW is over, and that the world's scientists have reached a conensus. They perpetually claim that we're all going to suffer horribly unless we repent and stop sinning by burning evil fossil fuels. Anybody that questions the "science" of AGW, still just a theory, is ridiculed, discredited and accused of being bought by oil companies. That is anti-science. When anyone claims the science is settled, that is the time to ask questions. When scientific debate and alternative views are stifled in the scientific community, when grants are only given to "scientists" that support AGW theory and grants denied to skeptics, it is time to ask questions. When a conclusion is reached on climate based on only one variable (CO2) and observations over a period of three decades while ignoring dozens of other variables and the entire climate history of the planet, it is time to ask questions. Here is the logic of AGW theory: average global temperatures increased (about 0.6 �C) in three decades, and atmospheric CO2 increased in that time, therefore CO2 must be the cause of the warming. It's terrible logic. For one, that 0.6 �C increase was erased in 2007 when the planet suddenly cooled - 30 years of warming erased in one year. The cooling coincides with a less active sun and a cooling pacific ocean (Pacific Decadal Oscillation switching to its cool phase) but alarmists conveniently ignore that. AGW theory is riddled with errors, inaccuracies, falsifications and the science behind it is perverted. AGW theory ignores the scientific method completely. It ignores anything or anybody that contradicts its conclusions. It's more religion than science. AGW alarmists do not consider climate history. They only use 30 years of data and computer models to support their claims, and the data fed into their computers conveniently supports their claims. Anything that happened before the 1970s was natural, but anything that happened after was caused by humans. I am a former believer of AGW theory, but when I started researching on my own I found exactly the opposite of what the alarmists claim: the science is not settled and there is not a consensus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm glad to see that they've dropped malaria from the list - that one was debunked years ago by scientists who actually knew about mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases. Now they've come up with a new list, completely unsubstantiated, that assumes continued warming. The trouble for the alarmists is that the earth is NOT warming, and hasn't for some time. Anyone notice how the AGW alarmists get more shrill and extreme in their predictions of doom the more their theories fail to describe the real world? This truly has become a religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've been noticing a very significant shift in AGW headlines. Much less emphasis on science, studies etc., much more histrionics, disasters etc.. I guess this means that science battle has been abandoned and the AGW crowd are on to using good old fashioned bullying and propaganda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing I have noticed recently is that a (former?) Canadian AGW supporter, Dr. David Suzuki (Canada's Al Gore) has gone strangely silent recently re: AGW. I wonder if he's jumped ship again, and is going back to his 1970's view that we're heading into another Ice Age?
Anyway, it's refreshing to see Dr. Suzuki on TV telling kids to conserve electricity and telling their parents to get rid of their old fridges in the garage because less electricity = more money for beer. Finally something Canadians can rally around!
While it is true malaria is mosquito-borne, this does not mean that that climate change will have no impact on the spread of the disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuite on the contrary, global warming would probably expand the breeding ground of the Anopheles mosquito. In fact, in the 1920's record warm temperatures (as well as famine) contributed to the appearance of Anopheles mosquitoes in that region. This indirectly led to a malaria outbreak.
So the effect of the climate, although indirect, should be taken very seriously.
The region I was referring to was the city of Archangel in Russia. My apologies for that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe region I was referring to in my comment is Archangel in Russia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry about that little slip-up.
Please provide a reputable source and data that support sunspots causing global warming rather than the the massive change in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Please show the data that disproves the historic correlation between CO2 concentration and atmospheric temperature. And your references cannot include Rush Limbaugh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey have been using data collected from ice cores that go back about 500,000 years to show the correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to see more solid science instead of seeing the constant mantra of "climate change." I know Ebola is spread by climate change and that gives us a good reason not to look for its real cause. I know climate change is the reason the city of Las Angeles does not have to end its degradation of the environment to secure its drinking water and go over to desalting ocean water. Climate Change means Egypt does not need to replant its great mangrove forest. Besides such a forest would no longer provide transpiration for a great forest of olive trees along the shore neither would it provide nurseries for small fish. Climate Change means that tsetse flies will simply multiply. Of course since they are attracted to bait stations several kilometers away, we have the ability to get rid of them now. It would mean covering a large part of Africa with bait stations and keeping them filled for a year. However, once they were gone, they would be gone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand maybe we can cry, "Global Warming," and people will throw money our way like they do Al Gore. It worked for the mantra, "Stem Cells," until that started causing leukemia it its recipients.