Farm animal disease to increase with climate change
Researchers looked at changes in the behaviour of bluetongue – a viral disease of cattle and sheep – from the 1960s to the present day, as well as what could happen to the transmission of the virus 40 years into the future. They found, for the first time, that an outbreak of a disease could be explained by changes to the climate.
In Europe, more than 80,000 outbreaks of bluetongue were reported to the World Animal Health Organisation between 1998 and 2010, and millions of animals died as a result of the disease. Bluetongue was previously restricted to Africa and Asia, but its emergence in Europe is thought to be linked to increased temperatures, which allows the insects that carry the virus to spread to new regions and transmit the virus more effectively.
Researchers produced a mathematical model that explains how the risk of an outbreak of bluetongue virus in Europe changes under different climate conditions. The team examined the effect of past climate on the risk of the virus over the past 50 years to understand the specific triggers for disease outbreak over time and throughout geographical regions. This model was then driven forwards in time, using predictive climate models, to the year 2050, to show how the disease may react to future climate change.
Using these future projections, researchers found that in northern Europe there could be a 17% increase in incidence of the bluetongue virus, compared to 7% in southern regions, where it is already much warmer.
Professor Matthew Baylis, from the University’s Institute of Infection and Global Health, said: “Previous study suggests that climate change will alter global disease distribution, and although we have significant knowledge of the climate triggers for particular diseases, more research is needed to identify what we think might really happen in the future.
“We have been able to show that the past emergence of a disease can be explained, in both space and time, by changes to recent climate. These results reinforce the belief that future climate change will threaten our health and well-being by causing infection to spread. Looking forward, this could help inform decision making processes on preparing for disease outbreaks and reduce the huge economic impact that farm animal diseases can have on communities.”
The research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society Interface.
Notes to editors:
1. The University of Liverpool is a member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive institutions in the UK. It attracts collaborative and contract research commissions from a wide range of national and international organisations valued at more than £110 million annually.
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Wow, with such logic (lack there of in reality) ice cream causes shark attacks. Someone published this CRAP! Wow
There is just nothing sane folks can do, since you cannot fix STUPID!
They found, for the first time, that an outbreak of a disease could be explained by changes to the climate.
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Oh, my. What passes for an education these days? So, let me get this straight. They found that some diseases thrive better in different environments than others. Hmmm. And they found this out for the first time????? WTF is wrong with these people? Did their parents give them stupid injections after birth or did mom take some pills she wasn’t suppose to during the pregnancy?
I was working as a psychiatric aide when the laws changed and we were informed they had the right to procreate…………..
Hmmmmmm… What has changed in the last 50 years? The ‘climate’? Debatable…. (truly).
How about the transport of raw materials, manufactured goods, services, flora, and fauna, including cattle and people between Africa and Europe? How about the dramatic growth of fast transportation methods between the 2, by land, sea, and air? How about the migrations of political, racial, and economic refugees from Africa to Europe? Wouldn’t these movements et.al. be logical vectors for transmission of all sorts of diseases, including lowly fungi?
On a lighter note… If a giraffe contracted ‘blue tongue’ disease, how would you know?
The god they worship is truly a weird one:
Any organism that causes disease, pestilence and plague will thrive. The ones that don’t are tragically going to go extinct.
Wayne Delbeke says:
June 29, 2011 at 6:22 pm EVH1
This was a case of folks transporting horses to Ogden, Utah from numerous states and then returning home. Almost as soon as the illness became known – it was stopped by shutting down shows, events, pleasure rides and so on. Members of our riding club skipped any events with visiting horses and rode only with horses known not to have been with any other horses except our own. After about 2 weeks all the state veterinarians issued “all clear” signals and horse folks resumed their normal activities.
However, I can build a model with temperature inputs if you send enough money and most likely show, maybe, there is a high to middle chance . . .
Oh, never mind.
Those arrows look an awful lot like the patterns of human immigration from Africa to Europe. By a strange coincidence, the microbes have the same language groups and colonial relationships as humans!
“Bluetongue was previously restricted to Africa and Asia, but its emergence in Europe is thought to be linked to increased temperatures, which allows the insects that carry the virus to spread to new regions and transmit the virus more effectively.”…..
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A virus that kills its host is a failure, which will soon be changing its ways.
Get used to “bugs” making inroads into new territories, the map looks like an aircraft flight route of the region.
We already have to take off our shoes to board a plane, might as well disinfect them while we’re at it.
Argh, well explained phenomena that has nothing to do with climate change.
Bluetongue (and some closely related) virii (viruses if you prefer, I use virii but I am old and follow the rules I learned) used to be spread only by one species of midge which was pretty much confined to Africa (and this seems to have been limited by vegetation type not temperature), however sometime in the recent past it changed (mutated/evolved take you pick) enough so it can spread by a few more species of midge which exist throughout Europe. Also if this paper brings in the winter seasonality argument ( that winter kills off the virus) the 2001 outbreak in Serbia was caused by viri which had been dormant for at least two years of rather harsh winter.
It seems like every other year someone tries to link the spread of Orbivirus in Europe to global warming. it has been going on for decades and been examined for decades, and there is no reason to link it to global warming. Are the reasons for the expansion to Europe perfectly understood, no, but the spread is happening independent of temperature.
Is there anything on Earth that is not made worse by global warming?
Rhetorical sarc off/
FairPlay says:
June 29, 2011 at 6:08 pm
“But wait a second guys – it is well know that all sorts of specifies will expand/contract their range based on climate conditions. It would seem to me that being aware/smart about the risks is only prudent.”
If you have no well-confirmed hypotheses then you have no science. They have none or they would not be using models. Just ask them if they can specify what facts on the ground would falsify their “predictive models.” They will not be able to say a thing. How do you falsify a model? There is no way.
Now there is bullshit when you read it, “Bluetongue was previously restricted to Africa and Asia”.
True that we had our first epidemic in the Netherlands in 2006, But on occasion bluetongue reared its head long before that, but only in very small numbers, Single cases most of the time. And farmers knew what to do in those times.
Now knowing that the virus requires a rather high average temperature to develop itself it is easy to blame climate change, but than people have to explain how this can happen in the Netherlands where the average temperature is to low for the bluetongue virus?
Or is there something else that helps the spread of the virus, we do tend to move large ammounts of lifestock around in Europe?
Can’t be warming. Switzerland is wholly covered by glaciers, see white country in the graphic.
This is the kind of crap that passes for biology these days. As a biologist, I am greatly offended at the loss of real science.
There used to be standards in this field.
Probably spread by researchers tracking it into new pristine environments to determine whether it had spread there yet. 1st visit: no. Second visit: yes. Must be global warmistas done it!
They call it sicken, I call it cookin.
I have the original of Dr. Benjamin Rush’s book “On Bilious Remitting Fever” aka yellow fever where he reports that they yellow fever epidemic of 1792 (book printed is 1793) spread as far north as Boston. Sure glad we had all that global warming to get rid of those disease infected mosquitoes so we do not have any tropical diseases up here.
When I first looked at the map at the start of this article I thought it was going to something about human migration as the lines show the most used routes from areas outside the EU/Europe by migrants (both economic and political). Perhaps having read the article, it would be a simpler explanation that people have carried these viruses from one place to another and as economic migrants tend to work on the land, accidentally infected the stock in the lands which have accepted them.
dp says:
June 29, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Next you’ll hear cell towers are responsible for the die-off of honey bees …
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Be careful what you wish for …
http://www.springerlink.com/content/bx23551862212177/
Abstract: The worldwide maintenance of the honeybee has major ecological, economic, and political implications. In the present study, electromagnetic waves originating from mobile phones were tested for potential effects on honeybee behavior. Mobile phone handsets were placed in the close vicinity of honeybees. The sound made by the bees was recorded and analyzed. The audiograms and spectrograms revealed that active mobile phone handsets have a dramatic impact on the behavior of the bees, namely by inducing the worker piping signal. In natural conditions, worker piping either announces the swarming process of the bee colony or is a signal of a disturbed bee colony.
Full text here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/bx23551862212177/fulltext.pdf
Nutters, I agree.
They found, for the first time, that an outbreak of a disease could be explained by changes to the climate.
They found it, did they? Found it where? Did they lift a rock and watch their link to climate change slither away from the sunlight?
About once a week, I get an E-mail from my 88 year-old father, or another of his generation – and sometimes from a good friend back East (who’s 5 years my senior!), asking me whether or not an E-mail they’ve received is “true”. Invariably they are hoaxes, but I dutifully send my mouse to Snopes and send them the link – although sometimes I just fwd the reply I sent the last time they asked about the same damn hoax!
All these people have had the benefit of a good education; prior to retirement they were excellent professionals, and they still have all their faculties intact. I’m sure that if they read the same material in hard-copy, they’d treat it as junk and discard without a second thought. Yet, when they receive one of these emails, it’s as though their critical thinking skills have have been lost in a virtual parking lot somewhere!
The latest one of these arrived today; but it’s not one I’d seen before (although it’s been around since ’98). The claim was that Aspartame (and similar products) was responsible for a gazillion life-threatening illnesses. Skimming through this masterpiece reminded me very much of press releases such as the one in this post.
And the thought occurred to me that perhaps those who produce these press releases have convinced themselves that the mere mention of “climate change” will be sufficient to ensure that any reader’s critical thinking skills will flee to the nearest virtual parking lot.
“Derek Sorensen says:
June 29, 2011 at 11:57 pm”
I am stunned there was a study into this when there is a much bigger problem with bees, and that is the bee mite, decimating bee colonies around the world. I believe Australia is the only country not affected.
And during the Middle Ages, Malaria & Rindepest were endemic in parts of England. There was an outbreak of Rindepest in London in the 1870s.
Breathing kills farm animals, new model shows.
One look on the map tells you what is really happening. The lines shown depict the main routes of (95% illegal) immigration of Africans and Asians into Europe. So people bring this virus strains, not global warming.