What might Singapore’s record number of dengue cases and the curious case of a cholera outbreak in Canada have to do with climate change?
Associate Professor Yann Boucher was invited on CNA’s ‘The Climate Conversations’ podcast to speak on how climate change affects the way diseases are emerging and transmitted. The discussion with podcast host, Jaime Ho, revolved around the impact of man-made environmental disturbances and pandemics.
“Certainly, there’s been changes happening in the environment and one thing to understand is that most diseases, at least the one that spread widely across the world, are what we call zoonoses… they’re transmitted from animals to humans,” said Assoc Prof Boucher.
“Most of these diseases are really dependent on animal–human interaction, and also interaction between animals themselves. To really understand how they spread, we have to understand how the climate is affecting the animals and nature as well,” he added.
“It’s a really complex interaction, but the climate definitely makes a difference in this interaction, and mostly through disturbance in the environment.”
Listen to the full podcast here: