Climate change threatens to spread viruses through an unprepared world

Climate change is creating ideal conditions for infectious-disease transmission and the world’s health-care systems aren’t ready for the shock it will cause, according to a new study.

After nations largely failed the stress test of Covid-19, a novel virus, decades of progress to control age-old illnesses such as malaria, dengue fever and cholera are under threat unless leaders commit to more ambitious climate plans, the Lancet said in a study Wednesday. The medical journal’s sixth annual report, named The Lancet Countdown, tracks 44 indicators of health impacts that are directly linked to climate change and highlights worsening social inequalities. 

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