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.
Someone forgot to mention to the researchers, that in the real world temperatures are not driven by computer models. Time to look outside the ivory tower,
http://www.thetotalcollapse.com/over-7000-buffalos-and-cows-freeze-to-death-in-vietnam/
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-snow-cattle-freeze-to-death-beef-donated-to-broken-arrow-animal-sanctuary/article/3540016
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/million-farm-animals-freeze-to-death/story-e6frfku0-1225827780294
““The advent of DDT revolutionized malaria control by targeting the home, leading to widespread eradication of the disease from Europe and North America. By 1975, Europe and North America were entirely free of endemic malaria.”
Once free of malaria, Europe and North America then moved to ban DDT, killing hundreds of millions in Africa and Asia in the process.
Once industrialized, Europe and North America then moved to ban CO2, killing hundreds of millions in Africa and Asia in the process.
If you live long enough, history will repeat itself.
They could of course have had a look at Wiki for an alternative possibility – which they really should have mentioned in their paper (did they?) – and they’d have found this under “Bluetongue”:
“A significant contribution to the northward spread of Bluetongue disease has been the ability of Culicoides obsoletus and C.pulicaris to acquire and transmit the disease, both of which are spread widely throughout Europe. This is in contrast to the original C.imicola vector which is limited to North Africa and the Mediterranean.”
Global warming is mentioned just before this extract as “perhaps” being a contributory factor.
We should remember of course that even if the globe is warming, that in itself says nothing about why it’s warming.
In any case, it looks like the researchers have got it wrong. There is a previously unsuspected infection route that appears to allow the virus to move to colder climates. The climate model assumes that the disease is insect borne, by midges that cannot survive cold winters. However, this is at odds with the rapid spread of the disease northwards since October 1998, at a pace much faster than can be accounted for by warming.
“Bluetongue virus might survive the winter within fetuses”, Institute for Animal Health, press release, 5 March 2008.
http://www.iah.bbsrc.ac.uk/press_release/2008/2008_3.htm
If you notice the graph, it is BTV-8 that is spreading into Europe, which is the strain of BTV that has been identified as passing from mother to fetus, to re-infect the midges the following year.
It would appear that the cause of the infection spreading north is a mutation of the virus. Other strains killed the fetus. This new strain does not, allowing the infection to survive during cold winters. This type of mutation is to be expected, as viruses over time become less lethal, to allow for more widespread infection rates. What we are seeing is evolution, not global warming.
What we are also seeing is bad science, the assumption that everything bad is caused by global warming, which causes resources to be wasted on ineffective solutions.
If only we could stop global warming, this would cure disease, poverty, hunger, cancer, etc, etc.
The truth is that even if we stopped global warming and/or climate change today, so that conditions were exactly as they were in 1850, before industrialization, it would not solve that vast majority of the problems we face.
Would such a change wipe out hunger, disease, illiteracy, etc? No, the change would be unnoticeable, except that food production would drop due to less CO2, which if anything would make matters worse.
This is the main problem with the CO2 obsession. The idea that if we could stop CO2 then all our problems would be solved. We have tons of problems today that are not being solved because of the time and money being wasted as a result of bad science blaming everything on CO2.
As others have mentioned the map above could be overlaid on a map of illegal migrants and their would be a good fit. The outbreaks are definitely man-made but have nothing to do with global warming. Move along folks, nothing to see here.
People movements, cattle movements, container ships, freight trucks……………the possibilities are endless.
Now for the good news. Since the 1960’s the percentage of cancer survivors is going up similar to a hockey stick. I’m sure global warming/climate change is a factor.
OMG
Are we sure that it isn’t due to the number of cattle being raised as “organic” isn’t hitting a number significant enough to act as a host? The timeline supports the idea.
I suppose they mean Global Warming and not Climate Change because as we all know Climate always changes..
Could, if, might. In my long lost youth we had a ribald saying that might more politely be expressed as “If my auntie had cojones she would be my uncle”.
The Bluetongue was probably brought to Europe in a similar way that the rinderpest virus went to Africa. In the 19th century the serengetti national park was occupied by several African tribes including the masai.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/borntorun/html/intro.html
In the late 19th century colonists brought with them the rinderpest virus which wiped out the local cattle population leading to mass starvation and the illusion of a pristine African wilderness.
This is beyond belief. Are the people targeted by this kind of pseudo-science so unable to think?
We are to believe that an increase of a few tenths of a degree over 50 years (when daily high temperature fluctuates tens of degrees during any summer month) has caused this spread of disease. What about ferries, trucks, trains, and planes? It couldn’t have anything to do with that.
What about Europe importing more animals that in the past were raised locally? Let’s not look there for relavent data. For shame on these scientists that want money for their disease research so they say Global Warming is the cause to get funding.
For shame.
I feel a bit sorry for them. You can see the desperation growing, just like a hockeystick.
I used to have hair and now I don’t. I’m certain my baldness has been caused by climate change.
“They found, for the first time, that an outbreak of a disease could be explained by changes to the climate.”
Cobblers!!! They discovered this a Pirbright years ago, certainly when they were supplying me with C. imic and nubec back in the eighties. Where are you now John Boorman? They are wearing your crown.
“They found, for the first time, that an outbreak of a disease could be explained by changes to the climate.”
Cobblers!!! read this published in 1995
“The recent outbreaks of African horse sickness (AHS) in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, which persisted for at least 5 years (1987-1991) therefore seem to have established a new pattern in AHSV survival in an epidemic zone. This extended persistence may be due to the ‘all-year-round’ presence in the area of adult Culicoides imicola, the major AHSV vector. This is basically an Afro-Asiatic species and its continuous presence in parts of Iberia and may be due to some recent moderation in the climate. Further northerly extensions in the range of Culicoides imicola, in response to ‘climatic moderation’, cannot be ruled out and could substantially increase the area of Europe ‘at risk’ to AHS.
Ann Trop Med Parasitol. 1995 Feb;89(1):1-15.
The transmission and geographical spread of African horse sickness and bluetongue viruses.
Mellor PS, Boorman J.
SourceInstitute for Animal Health, Pirbright Laboratory, Woking, Surrey, U.K.
“For shame on these scientists that want money for their disease research so they say Global Warming is the cause to get funding.”
Not all of them.
Boorman and Mellor were doing this research on a shoestring back in the eighties long before global warming became a cause celebre.
I can remember bringing specimens back from Crete for them preserved in Metaxa brandy for lack of anything better.
I also remember, with gratitude, John Boorman giving me introductions to contacts at the Commonwealth Institute and the Natural History Museum so that I could pursue my own researches (again on a shoestring).
Not everyone is in it for the money, often there isn’t any. There are or were scientists out there who do it for its own sake, knowing that fame and fortune are unlikely to be theirs but happy to win the grudging respect of their peers.
I happen to think this article speaks the truth. The stench of global warming hype is getting so bad, it is even making the animals sick. Who can argue with that?
I wonder if illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia reported to customs whether they had visited (or crossed) farmland in their journey to the promised lands in Europe?
I can do modeling too! A lemon on May 1 cost $0.59, June 1 it was $0.69 and 2 weeks ago it cost $0.79 and thus the nearly perfect polynomial model is y = 9E-05×2 + 0.0004x + 0.5896. By running that forward, with high precision I might add, to Jan 1, 2020, a lemon will cost $905.12. OMG! It’s worse than we thought !! /sarc
Theo Goodwin says @ur momisugly “If you have no well-confirmed hypotheses then you have no science. They have none or they would not be using models.”
I am not sure that is correct – there is a lot of evidence that species will respond to varying conditions, temperature being one of them. Using a model is required because it hasn’t happened yet – and it doesn’t seem to make sense that you cannot model possible outcomes.
The blue tongue correlates to the migration of muslims to europe.
Could we leave the (illegal) immigration of different ethnic groups and religions out of this?
its only a part of a larger movement of goods, livestock and people around this globe and in my opinion highly distracting and has little or nothing to do with the science behind this.