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Why China’s top Covid expert is studying climate change to prepare for the next global pandemic
- Infectious diseases specialist Zhang Wenhong is looking at how the environmental shift affects pathogens
- As the planet heats up, bacterial, viral and fungal infections are expected to evolve and mutate – and spread to new habitats
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Although new Covid-19 variants are continuing to emerge around the world, scientists and doctors have already started preparing for the next pandemic to arrive.
And as experts learn more about how climate change can affect the mutation and spread of infectious diseases, it might not be a question of if another will emerge – but when.
“After the end of the recent coronavirus pandemic, the whole world is actually preparing for the next pandemic,” said Zhang Wenhong, director of China’s National Medical Centre for Infectious Diseases.
In 2020, Zhang was appointed leader of Shanghai’s clinical expert team for Covid-19, becoming a household name and central figure in the country’s fight against the virus.
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.
While the world is often more concerned by the observable impacts of climate change such as extreme, catastrophic weather events, Zhang said a growing body of research was now examining the indirect impact of a warming climate on the mutation and spread of pathogens.
Research examining this relationship “will become a growing focus globally”, he said.
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