In the past three weeks, there have been nearly 100 cases of a rare tick-borne disease in Iraq, 18 human deaths from a rare tick-borne disease in Iraq, and four cases of the Ebola virus and more than 100 cases of bubonic plague found in the Democratic Republic of There is a dangerous strain of typhus in Nepal. There are many mosquito diseases on several continents.
The limited monkeypox outbreak that has started to appear in the last month, including 71 cases detected in the UK, are remarkable because they are being reported in rich countries.
It has been a bad month for infectious disease according to the ProMED website. Covid and HIV are still rampant, as are animal Pandemics. Hundreds of millions of poultry have been culled due to the spread of bird flu and African swine fever. There are mysterious diseases in fish and marine life in Australia and in Middle Eastern countries, as well as lethal dog and other pet illnesses, that have been warned this month by vets and ecologists.
There are more Monkeypox cases in the UK.
Most of the viruses that affect humans today were unknown 70 years ago. Changes in the global and local environments have led to an increase in the number of new pathogens jumping from animals to humans.
335 new and potentially fatal diseases have emerged globally over the last 70 years, and it is no coincidence that the climate has changed and more meat is being eaten. Disease ecologists say that the risk of a pathogen from one species to another is not increased by the expansion of farming or the exploitation of wild species.
payback time is now for nature We have created ideal environments for viruses and pathogens to spread because of the growth of human numbers, encroaching on wild spaces and unnatural conditions on other species. In the past 75, there have been many new diseases, including HIV, Lassa fever, and monkey pox in Africa, Chagas and Hantaviruses in Latin America, Hendra in Australia, and Mers in Saudi Arabia.
Monkeypox, plague, and even Ebola are all dangerous and exotic but they are not as controllable as they are now with vaccines. The threat of a new bird flu, just as likely to come out of a farm in New York or England as one in China, now stalks humanity. Chicken is now the most popular meat in the world and tens of millions of birds prone to catastrophic disease are being mass-reared at any one time, often in unsanitary conditions. It is only a matter of decades before a new strain of bird flu can easily be transmitted between humans.
Humans have dodged a bullet with both Covid and Sars, which have killed a small number of people. Every 30 years or so, there is a major flu epidemic with high mortality rates. If we are lucky, we will be able to find a vaccine that will only kill a small percentage of people. If we are unlucky, it could be just as transmissible as Omicron and as fatal as Ebola, which would be a huge blow to the global economy.
We may not have seen anything yet. Climate change is creating a hotter, sicker world with a potentially catastrophic impact on disease. Global heating changes the landscape of disease by allowing species to survive in new places and mix with others. Global heating allows mosquitoes, mites, fleas, ticks, and other arthropods to flourish in new areas, spreading diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and other diseases to previously cooler climates.
Should you be worried about monkeypox?
Canadian bacteriologists have shown how in times of great historical environmental change, pathogens jump more easily to new, susceptible hosts. Warming gives them the opportunity for contact. Novel variant are more likely to emerge once they have expanded to new hosts.
The situation looks bleak, but it is possible to turn it around. The early detection of potential virus spillovers in the wild can be greatly enhanced with the help of science and new technologies. Global finance can be used to improve public health systems in developing countries. They are the first line of defense against disease.
The lesson of Covid is that infectious diseases have their roots in ecology. The health of the planet and the health of humans must be considered with that of animals. It also means we should prepare for the unexpected, invest in public health as never before, stop cutting down the forests, address climate change and phase out intensive farming. The only hope we have is a planetary approach to health.
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