Healthy Ecosystems Are a Prerequisite for Human Health—A Call for Action in the Era of Climate Change with a Focus on Russia

Throughout history, humans have experienced epidemics. The balance of living in nature encircled by microorganisms is delicate. More than 70% of today’s emerging infections are zoonotic, i.e., those in which microorganisms transmitted from animals infect humans. Species are on the move at speeds nev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Main Authors: Dmitry Orlov, Maria Menshakova, Tomas Thierfelder, Yulia Zaika, Sepp Böhme, Birgitta Evengard, Natalia Pshenichnaya
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020
Subjects:
zoonotic diseases
climate change
Arctic
Russia
health care system
Medicine
R
Climate change
Human health
permafrost
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228453
https://doaj.org/article/c37b1cecbb8647c7b4b21053584ea435
Description
Summary:Throughout history, humans have experienced epidemics. The balance of living in nature encircled by microorganisms is delicate. More than 70% of today’s emerging infections are zoonotic, i.e., those in which microorganisms transmitted from animals infect humans. Species are on the move at speeds never previously recorded, among ongoing climate change which is especially rapid at high latitudes. This calls for intensified international surveillance of Northern infectious diseases. Russia holds the largest area of thawing permafrost among Northern nations, a process which threatens to rapidly disrupt the balance of nature. In this paper, we provide details regarding Russian health infrastructure in order to take the first steps toward a collaborative international survey of Northern infections and international harmonization of the procured data.

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