Emerging and Reemerging Human Bunyavirus Infections and Climate Change

The Bunyaviridae family includes a growing number of viruses that have contributed to the burden of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases around the globe. Bunyaviruses are especially malignant and pose a threat to numerous animal and human populations across many different continents. The Bunyaviridae family poses a serious global threat, one that will continue as new viruses emerge and endemicity expands with the changing climate and globalization. This chapter discusses climatic influences on transmission cycles and subsequent risk for transmission of bunyaviruses. The E1 Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon affects multiple weather conditions including temperature, precipitation, and wind speed and direction. Given that the impetus for rift valley fever virus (RVFV) outbreaks is often the unusually heavy rainfall associated with local and regional climate variability, the chapter describes the application of climate modeling to RVFV outbreak prediction.