China's infectious diseases specialist Zhang Wenhong is looking at how the environmental shift affects pathogens. are continuing to emerge around the world, scientists and doctors have already started preparing for the next pandemic to arrive.
He has published hundreds of papers in the field of public health and infectious diseases. But now he is embarking on a new initiative to address the intersection between two growing threats: climate change and infectious diseases., Zhang said a growing body of research was now examining the indirect impact of a warming climate on the mutation and spread of pathogens.
Across Southeast Asian and African countries “not only has malaria not been eliminated, but the number of cases are at very high levels”, and this was all related to climate change, Zhang said. “ mainly need to provide enough data, enough evidence, and provide corresponding suggestions” on how to build global pandemic preparedness, a goal that Zhang and others are now working towards.
“Using this platform, infectious disease experts and microbiologists can work with environmental experts and climate experts to conduct in-depth research on climate change and infectious diseases together,” Zhang said. As part of the work with the CCCW, an information-sharing platform will be created “so that we scientists have some systems that we can use to communicate”, Zhang said.
Antimicrobial resistance – when bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi develop resistance to drugs meant to kill them – is another growing challenge. “Bacterial resistance is a problem, and it has a lot to do with changes in the environment, climate changes, human activities and animal activities,” he said.
One of the strategies that has been proposed is One Health, an initiative that the WHO describes as an integrated global approach mobilising different sectors of society to work together on issues like managing global health threats.