Climate change may have directly influenced the emergence of COVID virus

 Researchers at the University of Cambridge have revealed a mechanism that suggests how climate change could have played a direct role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. The new study revealed largescale changes in the type of vegetation in the southern Chinese Yunnan province, and adjacent regions in Myanmar and Laos, over the last century.

  • According to researchers, climatic changes, including an increase in temperature, sunlight, and atmospheric carbon dioxide, which affect the growth of plants and trees, have changed natural habitats— from tropical shrubland to tropical Savannah and deciduous woodland, creating a suitable environment for many bat species that pre-dominantly live in forests.
  • The number of coronaviruses in an area is closely linked to the number of different bat species present.
  • The study found that an additional 40 bat species have moved into the southern Chinese Yunnan province in the past century, harbouring around 100 more types of bat-borne coronavirus, becoming a global hotspot.
  • This 'global hotspot' is the region where genetic data suggests SARS-CoV-2 may have arisen.
  • As climate change altered habitats, species left some areas and moved into others, taking their viruses with them. This not only altered the regions where viruses are present, but most likely allowed for new interactions between animals and viruses, causing more harmful viruses to be transmitted or evolve.
  • An increase in the number of bat species in a particular region, driven by climate change, may have increased the likelihood that a coronavirus harmful to humans is present, transmitted, or evolves in that region.

Did You Know

The world's bat population carries around 3,000 different types of coronavirus, with each bat species harbouring an average of 2.7 coronaviruses, most without showing symptoms.

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