Mitigating Climate Change’s Impact on Tick-Borne Zoonotic Disease Emergence

Abstract

Disease transmission from animals to humans — called a zoonotic disease — is responsible for nearly 60% of emerging infectious diseases. While zoonotic diseases already pose a major risk to humanity, global climate change and its causal human behaviors are compounding zoonotic disease risk. Dynamic species distributions, increased species overlap, and alterations in human land use increase the risk of disease transmission from non-humans to humans. Ticks, which carry many human disease-causing agents, are a primary example. As 23% of emerging infectious diseases globally are spread by blood-feeding arthropods, such as ticks, managing and monitoring tick distributions and their overlap and potential contact with humans is vital to decrease the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. While some programs are already in place, expanding current and implementing new programs across the globe is pertinent. We propose enhancing international collaboration and communication efforts through intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO), to better research, monitor, and mitigate the risk of tick-borne zoonotic disease. By focusing international efforts on ticks, subsequent zoonotic disease-climate change research and monitoring efforts can be done across species.