历史传染病疫情的环境与气候特征初探及对新冠肺炎疫情的思考

Preliminary Study on Environmental and Climatic Characteristics of Historical Infectious Diseases and Some Thoughts of COVID-19

新型冠状病毒肺炎(COVID-19,简称“新冠肺炎”)疫情的暴发与流行对人类社会安全造成严重危害,同时也考验着世界各国公共卫生系统应对大型突发性传染病的防控能力.对历史传染病疫情暴发和流行的环境与气候特征进行总结,对于新冠肺炎疫情的科学研究及防控具有重要的参考价值.结果表明:①历史上人际传播的冠状病毒科、正粘病毒科传染病多暴发于北半球亚热带季风气候地区及冬春季节,而黄病毒科传染病多暴发在热带地区及高温多雨的夏秋季节.②全球变暖和极端天气催生影响传染病的暴发及传播.③人类对生态系统平衡的影响,迫使病毒宿主栖息地迁移和不同病毒宿主聚集,增加病毒变异概率和传染病暴发风险.在此基础上,提出了对新冠肺炎疫情的思考,认为适宜的气候因素可能利于疫情的暴发与流行,而热带国家疫情的暴发则说明需要重新审视气候、环境条件及生态因素对新型冠状病毒的影响.研究结果将为新冠肺炎疫情的防控和未来传染病疫情的预测及阻断提供参考和借鉴.

The outbreak and pandemic of COVID-19 pose a serious threat to the safety of human society and examine the ability of public health care resources around the world to deal with the large sudden infectious diseases.A review on the environmental and climatic characteristics related to historical infectious diseases will shed immediate light on the scientific research and control of COVID-19.Our results show that:(1)Historically,outbreaks of human-to-human coronavirus and orthomyxoviridae infectious diseases mainly occurred in the subtropical monsoon climate of the northern hemisphere in the winter and spring,while the outbreaks of flaviridae infectious diseases mostly occurred in tropical regions in hot and rainy summer and autumn.(2)Global warming and extreme weather may exacerbate the outbreak and spread of infectious diseases.(3)The impact of human activities on the ecosystem balance forces the habitat migration of virus hosts and the aggregation of different virus hosts,increasing the probability of virus mutation and the risk of infectious disease outbreaks.The lessons from historical outbreak of infectious diseases suggest that suitable climate factors might be conducive to the outbreak and epidemics,while the outbreaks in tropical countries also indicate that it is necessary to scrutinize the roles of climate,environmental conditions and ecological factors in the global wave of COVID-19.Our study provides some useful insights for the prevention and control of COVID-19 plague and other potential pandemics in the future.