Abstract
Recognition of climate-sensitive infectious diseases is crucial for mitigating health threats from climate change. Recent studies have reasoned about potential climate sensitivity of diseases in the Northern/Arctic Region, where climate change is particularly pronounced. By linking disease and climate data for this region, we here comprehensively quantify empirical climate-disease relationships. Results show significant relationships of borreliosis, leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), Puumala virus infection, cryptosporidiosis, and Q fever with climate variables related to temperature and freshwater conditions. These data-driven results are consistent with previous reasoning-based propositions of climate-sensitive infections as increasing threats for humans, with notable exceptions for TBE and leptospirosis. For the latter, the data imply decrease with increasing temperature and precipitation experienced in, and projected for, the Northern/Arctic Region. This study provides significant data-based underpinning for simplified empirical assessments of the risks of several infectious diseases under future climate change.
Highlights
There are indications of climate change driving spatiotemporal shifts in incidence for certain d iseases[1,2,3,4,5]
It is unknown whether these sensitivity estimates are supported by empirical data for climate and disease outbreaks on a large scale, such as over the Northern/Arctic Region
Disease data were compiled in a regional dataset for seven zoonotic diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms using different vectors in ecosystems to infect humans (Table 1)
Summary
There are indications of climate change driving spatiotemporal shifts in incidence for certain d iseases[1,2,3,4,5]. Borreliosis, leptospirosis, TBE, and Puumala virus infection change in the same direction in both parts as over the whole region (Fig. 3a,c,e,f, Supplementary Fig. S5).
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