That climate change it could cause new pandemics in the next fifty years. A study published in Nature. The rise in temperature could actually favor the transmission of viruses between different species. So species jumps (or spillovers) could become easier. Also for SARS-CoV-2which triggered the pandemic of COVID-19, the hypothesis that it reached humans through an intermediate host (e.g., a small mammal, although not yet identified, ed.) infected by bats. However, in the future, such events could become much more frequent and worrying.
The connection between the climate crisis and disease has been the focus of research for years. Mosquitoes that transmit malaria, for example, will have an ever-expanding range of action as temperatures and hotspots on the planet rise. But before that, experts had never hypothesized that overheating might occur Effects also on unknown pathogens for our immune system. By 2070, many mammals will migrate. They change their distribution area, i.e. their reference environment, and come into contact with new species. That way, “they will have more chances to share viruses”.
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The study in Nature analyzed 3,139 different species. In the scenario envisaged by scientists, pathogens could jump from one to the other in more than 4,000 cases. Researchers can’t hypothesize what the most common infections will be, but some animals even risk catching more than one infection and then passing it on to humans. This phenomenon is caused according to displacements of species Colin Carlsson, a biologist at Georgetown University and co-author of the research. Humans will also be involved in the new plagues: Most animals, according to the forecasts, will seek refuge in “places where we built cities”. So a virus present in a rare rodent with which we have little contact today, it could quickly progress to city-dwelling animals and secure the chain to humans.
To get a better idea of the frequency of spillovers, the researchers built a database of pathogens and the mammals that became infected with them. Some viruses were found in multiple specimens, so they have already made a species jump. Then, thanks to a machine learning technique using artificial intelligence, they interbred the probability of two groups of animals being at risk of harboring the same virus. The more two species come into contact and inhabit the same places, the greater the likelihood that viruses will be transmitted from one to the other. Closely related families then – lions, tigers or other cats, for example – they have common biochemical characteristics. Viruses that are already accustomed to exploiting one species thus easily thrive in similar ones. In some cases, they also succeed in evading a previously adapted immune system. “We think that transmission effects may be more common because of the interspecific transmissions that we anticipate,” Gregory Albery, disease ecologist at Georgetown University and co-author of the new study, told the New York Times. But now we need to collect more detailed data on the ground to understand the effects of climate on species movements and learn more about individual viruses.
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Bats are particularly observed. Groups in Southeast Asia – carriers of the corona viruses that caused SARS or Covid-19 in 2002 – have so far lived in close quarters without signing contracts with each other. However, overheating leads to mass migrations and consequently more contact with different species. This allows viruses to evolve. The effects of the climate crisis on diseases – say experts – However, they might see each other before 2070. In fact, the planet’s temperature has already exceeded 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era. According to the model developed by the scientists, the current climate is already favorable for the transmission and spread of viruses. “The temperature rise so far has been enough to get the process going,” says Carlson.
The study of nature