‘Zombie Virus’: See 50,000 years old virus found in Siberia

In the past week, China reported the emergence of a new virus called the ‘Langya’ virus, the third new virus in the last four years, and it’s highly likely climate change is causing the emergence.

This isn’t exactly a new occurrence, most existing human pathogens have been adverse affected by climate change, turning out stronger as time passes

218 out of 375 known human pathogenic diseases - about 58% - have been affected at some point, by at least one climatic hazard, via 1,006 unique pathways, according to research

In essence it means viruses like dengue, hepatitis, pneumonia, malaria, Zika and more have either travelled around more or evolved faster due to the effects of climate change.

With climate change playing such an important role in propagating viruses, scientists say global warming needs to be combated as fast as humanity can. Just to prevent any further viruses from wiping us out.

Hazards that affect viruses include warming, drought, heatwaves, wildfires, extreme precipitation, floods, storms, sea level rise, ocean biogeochemical change, and land cover change. Climatic hazards are essentially bringing pathogens closer to people.

Warming and precipitation changes basically help populations of mosquitoes, ticks, fleas increase, creating more vectors.

As temperatures rise, more water is consumed by human populations, which has led to the emergence of waterborne diseases such as Vibrio (a kind of bacteria)-associated infections.

Climatic hazards have also diminished human capacity to cope with pathogens by altering body conditions like adding stress from exposure to hazardous conditions.