Emerging Zoonotic Threats: Climate, Ticks, and Disease Transmission
摘要
Most of the disease-causing agents in humans have originated from animals. These emerging zoonotic threats are directly related to the climate change. Deforestation, intensive agriculture, and excessive grazing are responsible for climate change. The dynamics of host and tick populations and the ensuing dynamics of disease transmission constitute an extremely complicated system influenced by both abiotic and biotic variables. Because tick lifecycles are climate-sensitive, tick-borne diseases are also climate-sensitive. Abiotic factors frequently have an immediate impact on tick numbers and distributions. Zoonotic diseases associated with ticks include babesiosis, anaplasmosis, Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, and Q fever. The majority of them are affected by climate change. Temperature change is a key factor involved in the distribution of ticks causing these diseases. As a result, some of the countries which were free of these diseases are now not free of these diseases. There is a strict need to adapt to mitigation strategies such as host-targeted interventions. Moreover, surveillance and monitoring strategies involve an interdisciplinary approach to control the zoonotic transmission of diseases. Multidisciplinary cooperation among ecologists, climate change experts, city planners, government representatives, parasitologists, and social scientists will help to control the zoonotic transmission of diseases.