Every time the world is shocking another climate file – whether it is an unusual heat in Siberia, the melting record of the glacier in Greenland or changing the angle of the Earth axis – against the foundation of weather worries, a different signal, but no less important: a signal. And we are not only in sunlight or heat tension.
The geographical and biological landscape of diseases is changing. Dr. Ekaterina Makarova talked about climate change affecting the spread of diseases in an interview with Rambler.
The 21st century medicine faces a new type of threat – epidemics through intermediaries, no longer limited to the framework of poor countries and tropical latitude. These are the consequences of environmental changes that cause the development of infectious diseases, changes in the season of outbreaks, the appearance of new pathogens and the migration of their carriers.
Historical diagram: Climate – Hunger – Disease
At first glance, the relationship between air temperature and the level of infectious diseases seems not scary. But the history of mankind proves this addiction many times. During a strong cooling process about 70 thousand years ago, due to the eruption of Tob Supervolcan, the number of homo sapiens on the planet, according to genetic estimates, dropped to several thousand. Everyone died not because of such a cold, but from hunger, the movement of the population and the infection that came to this resettlement.
A similar effect has been repeated in the era of the Middle Ages: the small ice age (about 1300-1850) comes not only due to the incident of plants, but also for the light rays of plague, typhoid and indigenous epidemics. Climate instability during this period destroyed agriculture, violated water supply and environment favorable for pathogens have been created. Each climate change in history is accompanied by social instability and epidemics that the drug of that era cannot control.
The disease captures new territories
Today, history is repeated – adjusted for globalization. According to the World Health Organization, about 60 percent of infectious diseases of natural and ecological origin. This is especially true for diseases transferred by insects and rodents: malaria, fever, plague, pain, admiration. The increase in air temperature leads to the expansion of their aircraft carriers.
The climate has a system impact on biological cavities: ticks and mosquitoes have been found in where they are simply before. We see cases of frequency encephalitis after the Arctic cycle, leukemia in Crimea, the fever of the western region of the Nile in Southern Europe. These patterns have changed in just one or two decades
Ekaterina Makarova Dermatologist, urinary doctor, integrated medicine
Temperature and moisture directly affect the incubation time in the body of the carrier. For example, at a temperature of about +30 ° C, the Delge virus develops twice as soon as possible in the mosquito body compared to +25 ° C – that means it becomes contagious a few days after a little patient.
Frozen threats: viruses from the past
A separate danger is that the territory of Vinh Cuu, now quickly destroyed. This is not just an ecosystem – this is a storage in which tens of thousands of years of microbiological history can be stored. In 2016, at Yamalo-Nenets autonomous Okrug, after melting the old deer, an outbreak of anthrax occurred, leading to the death of dozens of animals and local people's infections.
In laboratory conditions, the 30 -year -old 30 -year -old virus has been extracted from eternal permanent ice, including giant viruses found in Siberia. Some of them are feasible. In natural conditions, with rapid degradation, eternal ice, such microorganisms can penetrate into the waters, soil and air.
The melting of the tape creates ancient viruses: is it scary
A modern immune system may not have any mechanism to recognize these microorganisms. We never see them. This is a similarity of “extraterrestrial infection”
Ekaterina Makarova Dermatologist, urinary doctor, integrated medicine
Those who do not have a comfortable area
Today on the planet there is no climate safety area. Even in countries with high medical qualifications, new challenges appear. Therefore, in Europe, the number of fever in the West of the Nile is increasing, Lyme disease spreads in the United States and in Siberia, previous infections are only typical for the southern areas.
Moreover, climate change also affects antibiotic resistance: In a warm environment, bacteria multiply faster and regularly exchange genetic materials. This increases the possibility of stable forms.
Epidemic adaptation
We do not live in a stable era, but in the era of the upcoming waves of pathogens. This will not be a single Covid-19, but the entire new virus era, bacteria and parasites. And the main question is not how to avoid it, but how to prepare
Ekaterina Makarova Dermatologist, urinary doctor, integrated medicine
The main areas of this training course:
- Observe the system environment (including in eternal tape),
- Previously, the identification of pathogens and the control of the carrier,
- International data exchange between health organizations,
- The enlightenment of the population of risks and protection – especially in new climates.
Climate change is a factor that has redrawed the map of the disease. And if the history teaches something, it is the disease that is always ahead of the reaction. But we have a science, knowledge and experience of Pandemius – and perhaps now is the time to use them not to extinguish the fire, but to prevent the next wave.
Before that we wrote whether we needed to be afraid of climate weapons.