02 Jun 2022
Outbreaks of endemic diseases such as monkeypox and Lassa fever are becoming more persistent and frequent, the World Health Organization's emergency director, Mike Ryan, warned on Wednesday.
As climate change contributes to rapidly changing weather conditions like drought, animals and humans are changing their food-seeking behavior. As a result, diseases that typically circulate in animals are increasingly jumping into humans, he said.
"Unfortunately, that ability to amplify that disease and move it on within our communities is increasing - so both disease emergence and disease amplification factors have increased."