Climate Change Can Alter The Risk Of Succumbing To Infectious Diseases

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – Much is happening with our planet’s climate.

A new Europe-wide study investigated the prevalence of protozoans, bacteria, and viruses potentially pathogenic to humans and domestic animals in birds and bats in varying climatic conditions.

Blackbirds often have ticks and a small number of birds carry diseases such as Lyme disease. Image: Aleksi Lehikoinen

The majority of many of these pathogens were associated with temperature or rainfall.

The new study compiled information on over 75 European pathogenic microbes from almost 400 bird- and 40 bat species. Combining data on occurrence with climatic factors revealed that the occurrence of most pathogens was associated with temperature or rainfall.

“In general, the occurrence of pathogenic bacteria increased in areas with a warm and dry climate. On the other hand, pathogenic viruses prefer moist climate”, according to lead author Yanjie Xu from the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki.

The association between climatic factors and pathogens could be investigated on the 17 pathogen taxa with the most data. The observed associations varied.

“Temperature was positively associated with occurrence of avian flu virus, malaria -parasite, and bacteria that cause chlamydia, salmonella, Q-fever, and typhus in birds and bats,” explains university lecturer Arto Pulliainen from the University of Turku Institute of Biomedicine, in a press release.

Rainfall had both positive and negative associations with the occurrence of pathogens. For instance, increasing rainfall increased the probability of the occurrence of Usutu-, Sindbis- and avian flu viruses and salmonella bacteria.

“Usutu- and Sindbis- viruses are vectored by mosquitoes, and rainfall can increase the occurrence of wetlands favored by mosquitoes. Similarly, according to academy research fellow Thomas Lilley from the Finnish Museum of Natural History, ” similarly, avian flu and salmonella are prevalent, particularly in waterfowl, for whom wetlands are also important.”

The study, compiling results of over 700 research papers and almost half a million observations, bolsters the notion that climate change can alter the risk of succumbing to infectious diseases. Climate change modifies the distribution ranges of the pathogens and their hosts, the wild animals. The distribution ranges of birds have already been observed to shift northwards by over a kilometer per year. Climate change also influences the occurrence of pathogens in the environment, for instance, in water bodies.

“There is a possibility that, for instance, thermophilic pathogens become more common in northern Europe as a cause of climate change,” ponders senior curator Aleksi Lehikoinen from the Finnish Museum of Natural History.

The study was published in Ecography, a merited scientific journal. It was funded by a grant from the Academy of Finland “Climate Change and Health”- a research program to a research consortium consisting of members from the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku.

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Written by Eddie Gonzales  Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff