Researchers at the University of Cambridge have published a study estimating that global warming may have played a role in the passage to humans of the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19.

This would have notably favored the development of viruses on bats, a species of presumed origin of the Covid. 

Global warming may have played a role in the passage to humans of the coronavirus responsible for Covid-19, by offering new habitats for bats, a species of suspected origin of the virus, according to a study published on Friday.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have modeled the presence of populations of different types of bats, using temperature and rainfall data to determine the location of the type of vegetation constituting their habitat, for this study published in the journal 

Science of the Total Environment

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Bat species carrying coronavirus 

According to these models, over the last 100 years, 40 species of bats have thus seen the favorable conditions for their presence spread in an area straddling southern China, Burma and Laos.

Each bat species being on average a carrier of 2.7 coronaviruses, it would therefore be a hundred of these different viruses that would potentially be in circulation in this area, where SARS-CoV-2 is presumed to originate.

"We are far from saying that the pandemic would not have happened without global warming. But it seems difficult to say that this increase in the number of bats and the coronaviruses they carry makes it less likely," said in AFP lead author Robert Meyer. 

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The exact chain of transmission of the Covid remains to be determined 

The exact chain of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 remains to be determined, but climate change and the destruction of ecosystems are bringing humans and animals into more frequent contact, the researcher said.

"These are two sides of the same coin, we are penetrating deeper into their habitat and at the same time climate change can push pathogens towards us."

Several scientists who did not participate in the study stressed that the appearance of the pandemic had multiple sources.

"The passage (from animals to humans) is the result of complex mechanisms. Climate change certainly has a role in modifying the location of species. But it could be that the increase of the human population and the degradation of habitats via agriculture play a more important role, ”commented Kate Jones, professor of ecology and biodiversity at University College London. 

"They show that climate change may have had an impact on species in Yunnan, but it is more than 2,000 kilometers from Wuhan", where the epidemic appeared in China, for his part noted Paul Valdes, professor of environmental geography at the University of Bristol.