Climate change is making hundreds of diseases much worse
Climate change has exacerbated more than 200 infectious diseases and dozens of non-transmissible conditions, such as poisonous-snake bites, according to an analysis1. Climate hazards bring people and disease-causing organisms closer together, leading to a rise in cases. Global warming can also make some conditions more severe and affect how well people fight off infections.
Most studies on the associations between climate change and disease have focused on specific pathogens, transmission methods or the effects of one type of extreme weather. Camilo Mora, a data scientist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and his colleagues scoured the literature for evidence of how ten climate-change-induced hazards — including surging temperatures, sea level rise and droughts — have affected all documented infectious diseases (see ‘Climate hazards exacerbate diseases’). These include infections spread or triggered by bacteria, viruses, animals, fungi and plants (see ‘Mode of transmission’). The study was published in Nature Climate Change on 8 August.
