According to a study published Thursday in “Nature”, at least 15,000 new interests interest should take place by 2070, also threatening human health.
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“The decades to come will not only warm but more sick.” It is with this shock sentence that Gregory Albery, of the Biology Department of the University of Georgetown, in Washington, sums up the work he has Led, with Colin Carlson and other members of the American NGO Ecohealth Alliance, on the consequences of climate change on the risks of viral transmission between different animal species. in this study published Thursday, April 28 The journal Nature, the authors consider, using complex models and databases, that at least 15,000 new interests of interest should take place by 2070. “We have demonstrated a new mechanism potentially Devastating for the emergence of diseases that could threaten the health of the animal population, mostly with the branches for our health “, underlines Gregory Albery.
Pushed by climate change to move to survive, many animal species will travel a hundred, or more, kilometers in the coming century, carrying with them their parasites and pathogenic agents. These large-scale movements will cause many meetings, hitherto unprecedented, between species that previously evolved in separate environments, creating as many possibilities for transmitting viruses and other potentially dangerous bacteria between animals. “The interesting point of this study is that it shows that new coexistences of species will happen on a large spatial scale, the meeting barriers will disappear, underlines Jean-François Guégan, research director at the Research Institute for the Development and the National Research Institute for Agronomy, Food and the Environment, which has not contributed to the study. This “tectonics of species” will cause more and more viral or bacterial transmissions Between species, sometimes almost unpredictable. “
” hotspots “in Africa, Asia and Europe
The magnitude of this phenomenon will largely depend on the compatibility between these viruses and their potential new hosts, as well as the overlapping areas of the living areas of different species. In all cases, the authors of the study alert that these viral exchanges are mostly not studied and may ultimately cause zoonoses, that is to say the transmission of some of these viruses to the human population.
Scientists have thus identified different “hotspots”, places particularly conducive to interests and viral transmissions interests, which will largely coincide with a high population density in 2070, especially in the Sahel, the Ethiopian highlands and the Rift Valley , India, east of China, Indonesia and the Philippines. Some European territories have also been identified. Pathogens recently appeared as the USUTU virus, which has notably decimated the population of black merles in Europe, “show that these populations can still be vulnerable, despite monitoring and access to increased care”, warn the authors.
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