Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Pestilence, pandemics, and climate change in Australia
Recent outbreaks of deadly bat-borne diseases could be a sign of
things to come as rising heat and changing rains help the spread
of infectious disease in Australia.
Such is the warning that Professor Tony McMichael of the
Australian National University’s National Centre for Epidemiology
and Population…
Such is the warning that Professor Tony McMichael of the
Australian National University’s National Centre for Epidemiology
and Population Health will deliver in a public lecture tomorrow
night.
In his advance notes for the talk, Professor McMichael writes that
“recent outbreaks of bat-borne viral diseases in horses and humans
in Australia are a pointer to likely future risks to human health
– as climate change causes the displacement of species such as
bats from their natural habitat (and, perhaps, into the urban and
suburban environments).”
Health fears: a man in the Northern territory expels flying foxes
with a repellent device to expel flying foxes. AAP/Bird Gard
Professor McMichael will also talk about the growing chance that
mosquitoes carrying dengue fever will make their way to Australia,
given their expanding territorial reach in countries including
Japan and the Philippines.
In notes for the lecture, Professor McMichael mentions that
climate change partly triggered the 14th Century Black Death that
killed up to half of the population of many European cities. He
also writes that the last decade’s leap in the reach of the dengue
mosquito (Aedes albopictus) into Manila jumped the most when the
greatest year-on-year warming occurred (2005-2006).
In Japan the dengue mosquito has “extended its zone northwards by
500 kilometres over the past half century in association with
warming”.
Mosquito fears: a man sprays a residential district in Malaysia
with pesticide aimed at killing dengue-bearing mosquitoes.
AAP/AFP/Tengku Bahar
Higher temperatures in China have lead to the spread of the snail
that hosts schistosomiasis, or snail fever, that retards physical
and cognitive development in children.
Climate change could also hit Australia with the spread of Ross
River Virus, as well as gastroenteritis from contamination
spreadings into food and water sources, Professor McMichael
writes.
Professor McMichael also points to Asia’s experience of an
acceleration of new infectious diseases that are associated with
intensive land-clearing, human migration, trading patterns, and
climate-related shifts in animal migration.
“Such disruptions to natural ecological patterns and relationships
provide great opportunities for infectious patterns and
relationships to ‘jump’ into the human species as a newly
available host. More such jumps will occur,” Professor McMichael
writes.