Climate Change Is Making the Majority of Infectious Diseases Worse
More than half of known pathogenic diseases, including hepatitis, pneumonia, dengue, malaria, and Zika, can be exacerbated by climate change, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.Their findings, published on August 8 in Nature Climate Change, reviewed more than 77,000 scientific papers in relation to 10 different climatic events to learn more about how greenhouse gas levels impact currently known infections and diseases.“Given the extensive and pervasive consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was truly scary to discover the massive health vulnerability resulting as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions,” said lead author Camilo Mora, PhD, professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, in a release. “There are just too many diseases, and pathways of transmission, for us to think that we…