By Paul Eccleston | Telegraph.co.uk
Climate change will allow wildlife diseases to spread more easily, a new report warns.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) lists the “deadly dozen” diseases which could threaten human health and global economies.
The study shows the impact climate change could have on the health of wild animals and how it can cascade onto human populations.
Avian flu, TB and Ebola are just some of the broad range of infectious diseases that threaten both humans and animals.
Pathogens that originate in or move through wildlife populations can also inflict massive economic damage. Since the mid 1990s avian inluenza is estimated to have caused $100bn in losses to the global economy.
The report, The Deadly Dozen: Wildlife Diseases in the Age of Climate Change, says better monitoring of wildlife is needed to detect how diseases are moving so health professionals can restrict their impact.
Dr Steven E Sanderson, president and CEO of the WCS, said: “The term ‘climate change’ conjures images of melting ice caps and rising sea levels that threaten coastal cities and nations, but just as important is how increasing temperatures and fluctuating precipitation levels will change the distribution of dangerous pathogens.
“The health of wild animals is tightly linked to the ecosystems in which they live and influenced by the environment surrounding them, and even minor disturbances can have far reaching consequences on what diseases they might encounter and transmit as climate changes.
Read on here.
