From long-frozen and potentially dangerous pathogens awakening in Arctic permafrost to emerging heat-related hazards in human pregnancy, ongoing climate change presents new challenges for human health. In this Special Issue, Science's News Department offers a collection of five news stories highlighting several facets of the complex intersection between heat, disease, and human health and the researchers seeking to understand related emerging threats.
In one Feature, Science Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt discusses how infectious diseases, particularly malaria, are affected as the world warms. According to the report, the list of impacts is long – pathogen-carrying insects could multiply faster and spread farther; more frequent droughts or floods could expose more people to dangerous waterborne microbes; migrating animals could create new opportunities for zoonotic spillovers; global patterns of respiratory infections like influenza could change; and fungal pathogens could adapt to warmer temperatures and become more adept at infecting human hosts. This Feature profiles several researchers seeking to understand the complex and nuanced link between malaria and climate change.
Another Feature, by Science Staff Writer Meredith Wadman, highlights the growing concern of intense heat as a particular hazard in pregnancy and the research probing why. A growing number of epidemiolocal studies have linked heat exposure to poor pregnancy outcomes, including pre-term birth, low birth weight, congenital anomalies, and perinatal mortality. However, much less research explains how pregnant people biologically respond to heat stress and how this impacts fetal development at various stages of pregnancy. These questions have sparked new research projects to answer these questions, particularly among those in some of the globe's most vulnerable regions, like Africa and Southeast Asia.
In a third Feature, Science Correspondent Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar reports from Mumbai, India, on efforts to understand how heat affects the nation's urban areas and how researchers are helping authorities improve emergency response plans to the growing number of deadly heat waves.
Lastly, two stories by Science Staff Writer Jon Cohen highlight environmental threats related to climate change that could pose emerging risks to human health. Migratory birds are known vectors and can efficiently carry pathogens around the world. However, as climate warming reshapes some birds' journeys, new opportunities are being created for infectious disease transmission, including spillover into humans. How climate-driven changes in bird migration affect disease risk and the efforts underway to guard against it is explored in one story. Another story investigates how climate change may resurrect dangerous pathogens frozen for centuries in now thawing Arctic permafrost.
**Please Note – Non-Standard Embargoes**
The stories in this Special Issue will publish over the course of the week, with the embargoes lifting as follows:
- Introduction and 'Feeling the Heat': Tuesday, 26 September at 14:00 US ET
- 'Flight Risks' and 'Lurking in the Deep Freeze?': Wednesday, 27 September at 14:00 US ET
- 'Expecting Extremes' and 'Heatproofing India': Thursday, 28 September at 14:00 US ET
