Climate Change and the Migration of Infectious Disease

Zika is all over the news. Zika is surely dangerous, but it has its limitations and is likely to be well contained. However, its greater significance extends beyond any current spread. Instead, it exemplifies the crucial emerging trend of a novel infectious agent that has swiftly become a global threat.

The common phrase, ‘this time is different’, is almost always wrong. Yet, our modern circumstances are distinctly unlike any previous era. Humans possess a unique ability for rapid travel and we choose to journey with our favorite pets and plants. This unprecedented degree of mobility extends across every planetary habitat. Further yet, it now occurs during a phase of a rapidly shifting climate. Certainly, species migration or global climate change are not new but it is only in this present moment that these factors can amplify through instantaneous global travel in a singular manner.

In fact, the results of this unusual conjunction are already apparent. For example, Zika’s advance across Europe and to the Americas has been extremely rapid. This is such an extraordinary event that at the beginning of this year, the World Health Organization declared Zika a global emergency in recognition of its rapid spread from continent to continent. Its rising incidence mirrors our prior concerns about the global scope of other recent epidemics such as Ebola or SARS.

The World Health Organization notes that infectious diseases are emerging at a greater pace and spreading faster than ever before. There are at least 40 new infectious diseases that have emerged that were unknown only a generation or two ago. For example, Zika was first identified in the 1950s and was initially confined to a narrow band of equatorial Africa and Asia. Monkeys were its primary host. Abruptly, it appeared in humans in Polynesia in 2013. Thereafter, it is suspected to have arrived in the Americas by plane, appearing in Brazil in that same year. Now it demonstrates pandemic spread throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. It is a flexible virus, too. It can be transmitted by mosquito bites, from mother to child, by sexual contact, or blood transfusions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-bill-miller/climate-change-and-the-mi_b_9723388.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change