Researchers found over 1,000 pathways in how climate change is amplifying infectious diseases and human pathogens.
By Keith Bryant
Senior Digital Weather Producer & Meteorologist
Spectrum News
As we are getting closer to winter, more people are getting sick with seasonal illnesses like the flu and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). However, new research from the journal Nature Climate Change suggests climate change is aggravating 58% of infectious diseases.
A group of researchers at the University of Hawaii put together a list of 376 diseases after reviewing many academic studies and then looked to see at how droughts, floods, heat waves and other climate hazards affected those diseases.
Climate hazards affected only 218 diseases. According to researchers, warming temperatures, precipitation events and floods lead the way in amplifying pathogenic diseases like cholera, Lyme disease, West Nile virus and others.
They also found that droughts and floods that displaced people brought people closer to pathogens, while global warming allowed pathogens to spread.
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