The hantavirus outbreak highlights rising zoonotic threats driven by climate change and human intrusion into wildlife habitats, raising urgent questions about global preparedness for future outbreaks
Mpox is a viral zoonotic disease mainly found in tropical rainforest regions of Central and West Africa, with occasional cases elsewhere. An ongoing outbreak in Africa has led to over 14,000 cases and 524 deaths, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a global health emergency.
The study, published in the journal Science, supports a phenomenon known as "thermal mismatch hypothesis," which is the idea that the greatest risk for infectious disease in cold climate-adapted animals such as polar bears occurs as temperatures rise.