How global warming could lead to an unprecedented pandemic

The 2020-2021 pandemic has clearly shown that globalization, with all its undoubted advantages, has its own extremely negative downside. Having originated somewhere in the distant city of Wuhan, the coronavirus has rapidly spread throughout the world and is now generating new strains in different countries that are beginning to move in a new circle. So, for example, in our Rostov region they are no longer sick with the "Wuhan", but with the "Indian" strain of COVID-19, and soon we are waiting for the "Peruvian" strain. Such a speed and freedom of spread for infectious diseases is a real danger to all mankind, and the process of global warming may soon aggravate the problem.

Let's bring together the main factors that can take the risks of new pandemics to a new level.

A world without borders

The process of population migration itself is quite natural. People prefer to move from disadvantaged countries to prosperous ones, for which it is difficult to blame them. But the realities are such that migrants from Africa, the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, where not everything is in order with medicine and the epidemiological situation, prefer to move to the developed countries of the European Union and the United States. Moreover, not all of them get over legally, and therefore are out of sight of European and American health authorities. At the same time, once settled, such migrants often begin to try to drag all their relatives along with them. This in itself is a big problem for local authorities, but from the point of view of medicine, it is also dangerous because people from the poorest strata of the most backward countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America can bring with them the so-called "forgotten diseases", as well as other dangerous infectious diseases not typical for the USA or the European Union. For example, the Chikungunya virus, common in Asia or Africa, manifested itself in North America in 2014, in Colombia in 2015, in Italy in 2017, and in Brazil in 2018.

Another "weakness" of the globalization process is the ability to travel freely around the world. Yes, this is a great achievement of modern civilization - in a few hours to fly from one country to another, or even to another continent. But along with travelers, infectious diseases can also spread, like the coronavirus scattered from Wuhan, and it came to Russia from Europe with tourists returning home. It is also worth mentioning educational programs, within the framework of which students from Africa, India and Southeast Asia fly to our country to study. Well, let's not forget about the millions of guest workers who annually and uncontrollably come to Russia to work from the countries of Central Asia.

No, no one is proposing to close the borders and expel all foreigners, but this factor must be taken into account.

Virus migration

Here we smoothly return to the topic of global warming. The problem is that this process contributes to the spread of infectious diseases. Who or, more precisely, what is the main carrier? That's right, various insects, like mosquitoes or ticks. An ordinary mosquito is a real "flying syringe" that is potentially capable of transmitting a whole bunch of dangerous diseases: malaria, West Nile virus, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, Chikungunya virus, yellow fever, filariasis, dirofilariasis, tularemia, Japanese encephalitis, western equine encephalitis, eastern equine encephalitis, La Crosse encephalitis, and Zika fever. Mosquitoes are not only an inconvenience for campers, but also a potential source of infection. You should not be frivolous about the seeming exoticism of diseases: as we have clearly shown above, there are no boundaries for viruses, and tropical fever can be picked up on vacation in Italy or at a dacha in the suburbs.

For several years now, domestic epidemiologists have been sounding the alarm that the habitats of mosquitoes and ticks are continuously shifting to the north due to the global warming process. A report was released entitled "Climate Change and Health: Assessment, Indicators, Projections", where the researchers came to the following conclusion:


Thus, the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and West Nile fever are now recorded in our Astrakhan and Volgograd regions. Viral tick-borne encephalitis has already reached Komi and the Arkhangelsk region, where it has never been seen since.

Ancient viruses

Finally, there is the real "joker". Ancient bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms are hidden in the ice of the permafrost, in the polar ice. But it's not so eternal, this permafrost. In 2016, an outbreak of half-forgotten anthrax already occurred in Yakutia. Due to the abnormal heat, old cattle burial grounds melted, the spores of a dangerous disease woke up, which led to infection and mass death of livestock, and a child died from anthrax in Yamal. Experts warn that there is a risk of smallpox returning to Kolyma, where at the end of the 19th century, those who died from the epidemic were buried right under the top layer of soil, which could be washed out during floods.

And these are the viruses that we know, and science knows how to fight them. But how will our organisms react to infectious diseases of a different era awakened by global warming? This is completely unknown, and therefore potentially dangerous.