London:Increasing climate change conditions may raise the risk of infectious diseases that can prove deadly to humankind, finds an alarming study.
The study, published in the scientific journal Ecography, detailed a Europe-wide investigation on the prevalence of protozoans, bacteria and viruses potentially pathogenic to humans and domestic animals in birds and bats in varying climatic conditions. The prevalence of many of these pathogens was associated with temperature or rainfall.
The new study compiled information on the occurrence of over 75 pathogenic microbes across Europe from almost 400 bird- and 40 bat species. Combining data on occurrence with climatic factors revealed that the occurrence of most pathogens was associated with temperature or rainfall.
"In general, the occurrence of pathogenic bacteria increased in areas with a warm and dry climate. On the other hand, pathogenic viruses prefer moist climates," said lead author Yanjie Xu from the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki in Finland.
The association between climatic factors and pathogens could be investigated on the 17 pathogen taxa with most data. The observed associations varied. "Temperature was positively associated with occurrence of avian flu virus, malaria -parasite, and bacteria that cause chlamydia, salmonella, Q-fever and typhus in birds and bats," explains university lecturer Arto Pulliainen from the University of Turku Institute of Biomedicine in Finland.