Is climate change to blame for the Ebola outbreak?
Author: Ruth Schuster
Published: Oct. 21 2014
Link: http://www.haaretz.com/life/science-medicine/.premium-1.621945
Ruth Schuster, the author of the article discussed the possible sources of the virus Ebola and why human obtained the virus. She stated the most widely accepted theory of how human obtained Ebola, by coming into contact with an animal that does not usually have direct contact with human. Ruth Schuster discussed the fact that global warming caused by human is changing the face of the earth, and that it would affect wildlife behavior(e.g population, location) and human activities. The author discussed how climate change affect the interactions between animals and human, causing human to come into more contact with nature, increasing the possibility of getting infected with something. She stated that if the animals that carry a certain disease(vectors) had an increase in their population due to the climate change, it could cause a wider spread of this disease. The author used the example of West Nile Virus to demonstrate how climate change can cause a wider spread of a disease. West Nile virus, is a disease spread by mosquitos, and mosquitos appreciates warm climate, due to global warming, mosquitos's habitat expanded dramatically, and the disease spread further than it ever would have, West Nile Virus had gone global due to climate change. The author also discussed the situation in West Africa, as climate change decimates crops, people resort to eating more wild animals, which may include animals carrying ebola.
Published: Oct. 21 2014
Link: http://www.haaretz.com/life/science-medicine/.premium-1.621945
Ruth Schuster, the author of the article discussed the possible sources of the virus Ebola and why human obtained the virus. She stated the most widely accepted theory of how human obtained Ebola, by coming into contact with an animal that does not usually have direct contact with human. Ruth Schuster discussed the fact that global warming caused by human is changing the face of the earth, and that it would affect wildlife behavior(e.g population, location) and human activities. The author discussed how climate change affect the interactions between animals and human, causing human to come into more contact with nature, increasing the possibility of getting infected with something. She stated that if the animals that carry a certain disease(vectors) had an increase in their population due to the climate change, it could cause a wider spread of this disease. The author used the example of West Nile Virus to demonstrate how climate change can cause a wider spread of a disease. West Nile virus, is a disease spread by mosquitos, and mosquitos appreciates warm climate, due to global warming, mosquitos's habitat expanded dramatically, and the disease spread further than it ever would have, West Nile Virus had gone global due to climate change. The author also discussed the situation in West Africa, as climate change decimates crops, people resort to eating more wild animals, which may include animals carrying ebola.
This article relates to what we learned because it is an example of human changing environment and how that may affects human. We learned that the environment is changing due to human activities in the ecology unit, and it may result in a series of negative events. Human activities such as carbon released from deforestation and burning fossil fuels results in a number of climate changes, which may have increased the likelihood of human engaging in usually close contact with certain animals, and helped the population of vectors for ebola to grow. Ebola is a possible outcome of human activities.
Was there one specific organism that carries disease that had a population increase or was it many different organisms that all had an equal contribution to spreading the ebola virus
ReplyDeleteThis is only a working theory, we are not sure, but there different possibilities, the original carriers of the disease may not be the organisms that infected human, the most accepted theory is that gorillas or fruit bats, which are food of some Africans, contains the virus, and spread it to human. Their population did not dramatically change, but human engaged in closer contact with them(by eating them) due to the food shortages caused by climate change.
DeleteWhat kind of animal started the current outbreak?
ReplyDeleteGorillas or fruit bat, but we don't know for sure.
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