The Future of Emerging Diseases Under Climate Change:

Current Knowledge and Synergistic Solutions

for Health and Sustainability

Jean-Francois Guégan, William B. Karesh, Catherine Machalaba, Peter Daszak

FutureEarth ecoHEALTH, New York, NY, USA

www.futureearth.org

Sponsored by the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability comprising the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the Belmont Forum of funding agencies, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations University (UNU), and

the World Meteorological Organization.

www.futureearth.org

www.futureearth.org/projects/ecohealth

ecoHEALTH explores the links between global environmental change and health for the planet and society. There is growing understanding around the ways human-mediated environmental changes (e.g. land use change, wildlife trade, deforestation, climate change, human migration) significantly affect the health of wild and domestic animals, plants, and humans, resulting in both infectious and non-communicable diseases. By exploring the economics of emerging diseases, relationship between infectious diseases and biodiversity, impacts of climate change and demography on health, and ways to leverage health considerations to address underlying drivers of conservation threats, the ecoHEALTH project seeks to understand the health implications of current and anticipated global environmental change to identify solutions to promote both human health and ecosystem integrity. ecoHEALTH was launched by DIVERSITAS (DEBED), an international research programme on biodiversity science. ecoHEALTH became a core project of Future Earth in August 2014.

• > 60-62% of human infectious pathogens are of animal origin

– Health Burden: ~One billion cases and over a million deaths each year globally

– Current Trends: Majority of recently-emerging zoonoses are from

wildlife – Examples: HIV, SARS, Ebola, Marburg, Avian Influenza, Nipah virus

– Cost: Hundreds of billions of US$ over past two decades – Dynamic: Emerging disease can become endemic

Emerging Disease- Relevance

Micro Effects

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), 2012

Schmallenberg virus

Daszak et al. PNAS (2013); 110:3681-3688

©2013 by National Academy of Sciences

Nipah Virus - Risk Projection

Disease Emergence – and Spread

Nipah virus, Malaysia, 1998-99

Pulliam et al. J. Roy. Soc. Interface (2011)

Kilpatrick and Randolph, The Lancet (2012).

Global Avian Network- Daily

Passenger Capacity: red= thousands yellow= hundreds blue= tens

Need for Better Integration

Ezenwa V.,..., and Guégan J.-F. (2015). PLoS Pathogens, in press.

Need for Better Integration

Interdisciplinarity and infectious diseases: an Ebola case study Vanessa O. Ezenwa, Anne-Helene Prieur-Richard, Benjamin Roche, Xavier Bailly, Pierre Becquart, Gabriel E. García-Peña, Parviez R. Hosseini, Felicia Keesing, Annapaola Rizzoli, Gerardo Suzán, Marco Vignuzzi, Marion Vittecoq, James N. Mills and Jean-François Guégan

Ecosystem dynamics, viral evolution, and human epidemics need to be better understood

Understanding the Broader Connections

Research and Policy Opportunities

• One Health approach

– Inter-disciplinary research for societal solutions: ecology, climate/weather, veterinary medicine, agriculture, public health, development, economics, anthropology

• Prevention is better than cure: tackle underlying drivers of disease emergence

– Many drivers also overlap with contributors to climate change and biodiversity loss

• Communicate and leverage value of prevention

– Health outcomes are tangible for the public and policy makers

– Calculate value of health-promoting ecosystem services

• And financial risk/loss of their disruption

• Proactive consideration of risks: Health impact assessment

– Given acute and long-term links, need integrated understanding of potential health, environmental, and social impacts accountability and mitigation opportunities

The Future of Emerging Diseases Under Climate Change:

Current Knowledge and Synergistic Solutions

for Health and Sustainability

For questions please contact:

Catherine Machalaba, Future Earth ecoHEALTH Science Officer

machalaba@ecohealthalliance.org