Climate change, migratory species and pandemic influenza

摘要

Environment and health dominate international journals, newspapers, and global search engines with climate change and avian flu usurping world headlines. Global mean temperature is projected to increase 1.1-6.4℃ over the coming century, a rise greater than any increase experienced by humans during the past 10,000 years. Climate change is a growing concern to the World Health Organization (WHO) because of its potentially serious health consequences, including an increase in illness and death related to extreme temperature events, weather events, and infectious disease. A more pressing issue for the WHO is pandemic flu, which leading influenza experts fear is inevitable, if not imminent; for example, evidence suggests that influenza A H5N1 is now endemic in parts of Asia, is affecting new mammalian hosts, is expanding its geographic range, and is increasingly pathogenic. Future climate change is likely to impact migratory bird species, their breeding and non-breeding areas, migration routes, and stopover sites. This paper will therefore first discuss environmental controls for key migratory species, and how climate change may influence their survival and distribution, and possibly affect the spread of highly pathogenic influenza. This paper will then discuss other possible impacts of climate change on pandemic influenza.