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The Hill
4 days ago
- Health
- The Hill
Wildfires may be accelerating the spread of infectious disease by keeping US West residents indoors: Study
As climate-driven weather extremes fuel fires across the U.S. West, the tendency of residents to spend more time indoors may be accelerating the spread of infectious diseases, a new study has found. Wildfire-induced declines in air quality have led to a substantial surge in indoor activities, creating prime conditions for the transmission of respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 and the flu, according to the study, published on Wednesday in PLOS Climate. 'Our findings show that wildfires led to a dramatic increase in indoor activities, creating the ideal conditions for respiratory diseases such as influenza to spread,' wrote the authors, overseen by Giulia Pullano, a public health researcher at Georgetown University. The scientists drew their conclusions by zooming in on air quality data for particularly hard-hit counties in Oregon and Washington from July through November 2020. In September alone, they observed that at least eight large wildfires were burning in the two states. They were then able to model indoor and outdoor activity patterns by acquiring records from a mobile phone database that tracks user visits to more than 4.6 million points of interest nationwide. Counties in Oregon and Washington experienced an average 10.8 percent and 14.3 percent rise in indoor activity during their 2020 wildfires, with Portland and Seattle exhibiting respective surges of 11 and 16 percent, the authors observed. To understand how these wildfire-driven behavioral changes contributed to the circulation of respiratory diseases, they paired the activity data with an infectious disease transmission model. They found that increased indoor activity significantly impacted disease spread, with that effect decreasing with illnesses that have a longer generation time — the time between a primary case infection and the development of secondary cases. For those with generation times of less than one week, such as COVID-19 and influenza, the authors identified 'a notable increase in relative peak incidence.' The same was not true for pertussis-like illnesses, which can have a 25-day generation period, per the study. Aiming to evaluate possible solutions, the scientists said they evaluated the impact of potential mask usage in indoor environments. They found that even a modest 10-percent increase in mask-wearing 'can lead to a notable reduction in the rise of peak incidence driven by the surge oil indoor activities during wildfire.' 'However, achieving a substantial and meaningful reduction in exposure risk necessitates much higher levels of mask compliance,' the researchers noted. The scientists expressed hope that going forward, their research would provide a foundation for future such investigations into the indirect impacts of environmental disturbances on communities. Their findings, they warned, underscore an 'urgent need to address the secondary effects of climate change on public health.' 'As climate change continues to alter our environment, it is crucial for public health interventions to evolve accordingly, equipping us to tackle the multifaceted and interconnected risks of a warming world,' they concluded.
Irish Post
05-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Post
Heatwaves have ‘major impact' on spread of disease
HEATWAVES can have a major influence on the spread of disease new research by Irish scientists has found. The study conducted by researchers at Trinity College Dublin, found that a multitude of factors related to sudden heatwaves can have a significant impact on environmentally transmitted diseases. It also found that many existing predictive models related to the spread of disease have overlooked this factor. 'While scientists have a relatively good idea of how temperature impacts some viruses and disease-causing pathogens and parasites, they know much less about the effects of sudden heatwaves or cold snaps, or how influential variation in the duration of these events are,' the report authors explain. Specifically, the scientists discovered that differences in heatwaves – such as how much hotter they are than normal temperatures, and how long they last – can increase or decrease disease burden by up to 13 times. Their discovery and its implications come at a time when global climate change and related extreme weather events are impacting counties across the globe, and their findings have been published in the leading international journal PLOS Climate. 'In this study, we worked with the water flea (Daphnia magna) and a microsporidian pathogen (Ordospora colligata), which is a widely used model for environmentally transmitted diseases, to investigate the impacts of different heatwave attributes,' first author, Niamh McCartan, a PhD candidate from Trinity's School of Natural Sciences, said this week. 'We manipulated the amplitude and duration of heatwaves across four average temperatures and four distinct time points at which the hosts were exposed to the pathogen. 'This approach gave us 64 unique heatwaves for comparison.' The results showed that, when compared to other types of temperature variation, such as cold snaps, heatwaves alter parasite burden up to 13-fold, which drives significant variation in infection outcomes. 'A recently published study reported that 58 per cent of human pathogenic diseases have been aggravated by climate change, with temperature changes impacting host susceptibility due to altering biological properties such as how our immune systems function, as well as our behaviour,' Ms McCartan explained. 'From a bigger-picture perspective, this work underlines the need for more detailed, context-specific models to help better predict the likely impact of heatwaves and climate change on different diseases. 'We now know that amplitude, duration, baseline temperature and the point at which exposure occurs have differing effects in shaping disease outcomes, so overly simplified models may miss critical complexities.' She explained: 'For example, other researchers have suggested almost 70 per cent of Covid-19 cases in the summer of 2022 could have been avoided if there hadn't been heatwaves around that time – imagine the difference that a better understanding of how heatwaves alter disease dynamics could have made to countless people?' 'Climate change is also causing mosquito species that carry diseases like dengue, Zika, and malaria to be increasingly found in parts of southern and central Europe, including Italy and France, areas that were previously too cool to support them. 'While Ireland has so far been less affected, the findings of our study highlight the urgent need to understand how warming and extreme weather events can alter disease dynamics more broadly. 'With all of this in mind, it's important that future disease-specific models must account for fluctuating and extreme temperatures, not just averages.' See More: Disease, Heatwave, Research, TCD
Irish Times
04-06-2025
- Climate
- Irish Times
Influence of heatwave and cold snaps on spread of disease likely underestimated, says study
The influence of heatwaves fuelled by climate change and cold snaps on the spread of diseases is likely to have been underestimated using current prediction methods, Irish scientists have found. Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have shown differences in heatwaves – such as how much hotter they are than normal temperatures and how long they last – 'can increase or decrease disease burden by up to 13 times, when it comes to parasites infecting humans'. Their discovery coincides with climate change and related extreme weather events impacting across the planet and predicted to get worse. 'Given the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves in particular, it's crucial to understand how these events will affect the spread of disease,' said postgraduate researcher at TCD School of Natural Sciences, Niamh McCartan, lead author of a study published in PLOS Climate on Wednesday. READ MORE [ Commitment to climate action hard to find in Government Opens in new window ] While scientists have a relatively good idea of how temperature impacts some viruses and disease-causing pathogens and parasites, they know much less about the effects of sudden heatwaves or cold snaps, or how influential variation in duration of these events are, she said. 'Climate change is also causing mosquito species that carry diseases like dengue, Zika, and malaria to be increasingly found in parts of southern and central Europe, including Italy and France, areas that were previously too cool to support them,' she said . 'While Ireland has so far been less affected, the findings of our study highlight the urgent need to understand how warming and extreme weather events can alter disease dynamics more broadly.' They worked with the water flea and a tiny 'microsporidian pathogen' that are used widely to predict environmentally transmitted diseases. 'This approach gave us 64 unique heatwaves for comparison.' A recently published study reported '58 per cent of human pathogenic diseases have been aggravated by climate change, with temperature changes impacting host susceptibility due to altering biological properties such as how our immune systems function, as well as our behaviour', Ms McCartan said. Overly simplified models 'may miss critical complexities', she said. 'Future disease-specific models must account for fluctuating and extreme temperatures, not just averages.' Other research has suggested almost 70 per cent of Covid-19 cases in the summer of 2022 could have been avoided if there had not been heatwaves around that time. 'Imagine the difference that a better understanding of how heatwaves alter disease dynamics could have made to countless people,' she said.
Irish Examiner
04-06-2025
- Climate
- Irish Examiner
Heatwaves have a major impact on the spread of many diseases — Irish research
New research from scientists in Ireland strongly implies that heatwaves have a major influence on the spread of many diseases. Specifically, the scientists have discovered that differences in heatwaves — such as how much hotter they are than normal temperatures, and how long they last — can increase disease burden by up to 13 times in a commonly used experimental animal model. Their discovery and its implications come at an important time, with global climate change and related extreme weather events continuing to impact many in various ways (temperatures approached 50°C in Pakistan last month, while a cold snap in South Africa approached freezing conditions). Given the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves in particular, it's crucial to understand how these events will affect the spread of disease. Daphnia magna (water flea). Picture: Dieter Ebert While scientists have a relatively good idea of how temperature impacts some viruses and disease-causing pathogens and parasites, they know much less about the effects of sudden heatwaves or cold snaps, or how influential variation in the duration of these events are. That is what the scientists behind the new research, just published in the leading international journal PLOS Climate, set out to explore. Niamh McCartan: "While Ireland has so far been less affected, the findings of our study highlight the urgent need to understand how warming and extreme weather events can alter disease dynamics more broadly.' First author, Niamh McCartan, a PhD candidate from Trinity College Dublin's s School of Natural Sciences, noted: 'From a bigger-picture perspective, this work underlines the need for more detailed, context-specific models to help better predict the likely impact of heatwaves and climate change on different diseases. We now know that amplitude, duration, baseline temperature and the point at which exposure occurs have differing effects in shaping disease outcomes, so overly simplified models may miss critical complexities. For example, other researchers have suggested almost 70% of covid-19 cases in the summer of 2022 could have been avoided if there hadn't been heatwaves around that time — imagine the difference that a better understanding of how heatwaves alter disease dynamics could have made to countless people.' The results revealed that complex interactions exist between heatwave attributes and baseline temperatures, which in turn drive context-dependent effects on both pathogen prevalence and proliferation. Perhaps most importantly, when compared to other types of temperature variation (such as cold snaps), heatwaves behave differently — altering parasite burden up to 13-fold, and thus driving significant variation in infection outcomes. Parasite spore clusters (Ordospora colligata) seen as black dots within the gut of the host, Daphnia magna Niamh McCartan explained: 'In this study, we worked with the water flea (Daphnia magna) and a microsporidian pathogen (Ordospora colligata), which are a widely used model for environmentally transmitted diseases, to investigate the impacts of different heatwave attributes. We manipulated the amplitude and duration of heatwaves across four average temperatures and four distinct time points at which the hosts were exposed to the pathogen. This approach gave us 64 unique heatwaves for comparison.' 'A recently published study reported that 58% of human pathogenic diseases have been aggravated by climate change, with temperature changes impacting host susceptibility due to altering biological properties such as how our immune systems function, as well as our behaviour." 'Climate change is also causing mosquito species that carry diseases like dengue, Zika, and malaria to be increasingly found in parts of southern and central Europe, including Italy and France, areas that were previously too cool to support them. While Ireland has so far been less affected, the findings of our study highlight the urgent need to understand how warming and extreme weather events can alter disease dynamics more broadly.' 'With all of this in mind, it's important that future disease-specific models must account for fluctuating and extreme temperatures, not just averages.' In addition to this big-picture perspective, the findings of this work also have more specific, valuable insights for freshwater ecology, given that the water flea plays an important role in freshwater food webs, helping to support numerous other species that use them as a food source. In other cases, when their numbers plummet, algae can take over and negatively impact water quality, which in turn has a suite of negative, knock-on effects. This work was funded by a Research Ireland (formerly Science Foundation Ireland) Frontiers for the Future award. Note: Although not all findings transfer directly across species, the animal model used in these experiments shares key features with many real-world disease systems, making it a powerful tool for uncovering general principles about how climate extremes might reshape disease dynamics.
Bloomberg
04-06-2025
- Health
- Bloomberg
The Unexpected Ways Heat is Changing How Parasites Spread Disease
When researchers mimicked heat waves in the lab to see how climate change might affect the spread of disease, they found that dialing up the temperature had the potential to lead to two very different outcomes: A spike in the population of disease-spreading parasites or a collapse in their numbers. While scientists have known for decades that heat waves lead to the proliferation of disease, from mosquito-borne malaria to respiratory infections like pneumonia, it's becoming increasingly clear that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, such diseases won't spread evenly. The new research, which was published in PLOS Climate on Wednesday, suggests that factors like how long heat waves last and how hot they get can determine whether a community is hit by a disease breakout or spared.
