NEW YORK, February 6 – Climate change may have played a “key role” in the transmission of the novel coronavirus to humans by driving several species of pathogen-carrying bats to closer communication, research showed yesterday.
The virus, which killed more than two million people and caused unprecedented global unrest, is thought to have battered bats in Southeast Asia.
Researchers from Cambridge University have used temperature and precipitation data over the past 100 years to model numbers of dozens of bat species according to their habitat requirements.
They found that, over the last century, 40 species have migrated to southern China, Laos and Myanmar – the area where genetic analysis reveals the emergence of the virus known as SARS -CoV-2 first.
With an average of 2.7 coronaviruses per bat species, the researchers reported that 100 species of coronavirus were now collected in this “hotspot” area.
“Our paper is a long way from saying that pandemic would not have happened without climate change,” lead author Robert Meyer of Cambridge’s zoology department told AFP.
“But I find it hard to see that this climate increase in bats and coronaviruses with bats makes something like this so unlikely. ”
Although the exact sequence of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from animals to humans has not yet been confirmed, Beyer said climate change and habitat destruction in Asia have brought virus-carrying species into closer contact with populations. people.
“It’s two sides of the same coin: we go deeper into their habitat but at the same time climate change can have the effect of pushing the pathogen in our direction,” he said.
‘Complex risk’
The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, urged governments to take steps including limiting urban expansion and farming, which it said would help manage the risk of pandemic disease. another spread of endemic disease in wild animals.
It also calls for more effort to mitigate climate change to avoid large assemblages of wild species close to human habitation.
“Climate change should accelerate the spread of wildlife pathogens to humans as an urgent wake-up call to reduce global emissions,” said Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii, who added to the research.
Kate Jones, Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity at University College London, said yesterday’s research was interesting but that the disease was spread due to a number of factors.
“Climate change certainly has a role to play in changing species distributions to increase ecological risk,” said Jones, who was not involved in the study.
“However, spillover risk is a complex interplay of not only ecological risk but human exposure and vulnerability.”
Habitat loss, for example, has also been a key driver in pushing wild animal species closer to human populations. – ETX Studios