Scientists fear climate change could bring back dormant viruses

PARIS, August 16 (online): Scientists fear the emergence of long-dormant viruses brought back to life due to climate change could prove to be disastrous for the world.

These could be disaster movie story lines, but they are also serious and increasingly plausible scenarios of epidemics unleashed by global warming, scientists say.

The COVID-19 pandemic that has swept the globe and claimed over 760,000 lives so far almost certainly came from a wild bat, highlighting the danger of humanity’s constant encroachment on the planet’s dwindling wild spaces.

But the expanding ecological footprint of our species could trigger epidemics in other ways too.

Climate change — already wreaking havoc with one degree Celsius of warming — is also emerging as a driver of infectious disease, whether by expanding the footprint of malaria- and dengue-carrying mosquitoes, or defrosting prehistoric pathogens from the Siberian permafrost.

‘Ignorance is our enemy’