Stemming the rising tide of Vibrio disease.

Globally, the diverse bacterial genus Vibrio is the most important group of bacterial pathogens found in marine and coastal waters. These bacteria can cause an array of human infections via direct exposure to seawater or through the consumption of seafoods grown and cultivated in coastal and estuarine settings. Crucially, we appear to be on the cusp of an alarming global increase in Vibrio disease.

The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms.

Unlabelled: The Countdown is an international research collaboration that independently monitors the evolving impacts of climate change on health, and the emerging health opportunities of climate action. In its eighth iteration, this 2023 report draws on the expertise of 114 scientists and health practitioners from 52 research institutions and UN agencies worldwide to provide its most comprehensive assessment yet. In 2022, the Countdown warned that people’s health is at the mercy of fossil fuels and stressed the transformative opportunity of jointly tackling the concurrent climate change, energy, cost-of-living, and health crises for human health and wellbeing.

Sea temperature influences accumulation of tetrodotoxin in British bivalve shellfish.

Tetrodotoxin (TTX), a potent neurotoxin mostly associated with pufferfish poisoning, is also found in bivalve shellfish. Recent studies into this emerging food safety threat reported TTX in a few, mainly estuarine, shellfish production areas in some European countries, including the United Kingdom. A pattern in occurrences has started to emerge, however the role of temperature on TTX has not been investigated in detail.

A new generation of real-time environmental monitoring systems to study the impact of El Niño on disease dynamics.

Global warming is drastically altering weather patterns, accentuating the frequency and strength of global events such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation. This alteration is driving the spread of diseases sensitive to climate such as diarrheal diseases. Environmental monitoring through remote sensing, in combination with data from epidemiological surveillance programs, is facilitating the study of infectious disease dynamics associated with El Niño.

The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels.

Unlabelled: The 2022 report of the Countdown is published as the world confronts profound and concurrent systemic shocks. Countries and health systems continue to contend with the health, social, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a persistent fossil fuel overdependence has pushed the world into global energy and cost-of-living crises. As these crises unfold, climate change escalates unabated.

Tracking the impacts of climate change on human health via indicators: lessons from the Lancet Countdown.

Background: In the past decades, climate change has been impacting human lives and health via extreme weather and climate events and alterations in labour capacity, food security, and the prevalence and geographical distribution of infectious diseases across the globe. Climate change and health indicators (CCHIs) are workable tools designed to capture the complex set of interdependent interactions through which climate change is affecting human health. Since 2015, a novel sub-set of CCHIs, focusing on climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability indicators (CCIEVIs) has been developed, refined, and integrated by Working Group 1 of the "Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change", an international collaboration across disciplines that include climate, geography, epidemiology, occupation health, and economics.

The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future.

Unlabelled: The Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health consequences of a changing climate. Publishing updated, new, and improved indicators each year, the Countdown represents the consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and UN agencies. The 44 indicators of this report expose an unabated rise in the health impacts of climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe—providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else.

Future scenarios of risk of Vibrio infections in a warming planet: a global mapping study.

Background: Infections caused by non-cholera Vibrio species have undergone a global expansion over the past few decades reaching new areas of the world that were previously considered adverse for these organisms. The geographical extent of the expansion has not been uniform, and some areas have shown a rapid increase in infections.

Methods: We applied a new generation of models combining climate, population, and socioeconomic projections to map future scenarios of distribution and season suitability for pathogenic Vibrio.

The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises.

For the Chinese, French, German, and Spanish translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.

The new tools revolutionizing Vibrio science.

As microbiologists we live in exciting times. A variety of technical and conceptual developments, particularly in the last decade have revolutionized the field of microbiology, redrawing the landscape, and entirely redefining what is possible. Perhaps this paradigm shift is no more apparent than in the study of vibrios.

The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate.

Unlabelled: The Countdown is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration, dedicated to monitoring the evolving health profile of climate change, and providing an independent assessment of the delivery of commitments made by governments worldwide under the Paris Agreement. The 2019 report presents an annual update of 41 indicators across five key domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. The report represents the findings and consensus of 35 leading academic institutions and UN agencies from every continent.

The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come.

Unlabelled: The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change was established to provide an independent, global monitoring system dedicated to tracking the health dimensions of the impacts of, and the response to, climate change. The Countdown tracks 41 indicators across five domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; finance and economics; and public and political engagement. This report is the product of a collaboration of 27 leading academic institutions, the UN, and intergovernmental agencies from every continent.

Enduring Lagrangian coherence of a Loop Current ring assessed using independent observations.

Ocean flows are routinely inferred from low-resolution satellite altimetry measurements of sea surface height assuming a geostrophic balance. Recent nonlinear dynamical systems techniques have revealed that surface currents derived from altimetry can support mesoscale eddies with material boundaries that do not filament for many months, thereby representing effective transport mechanisms. However, the long-range Lagrangian coherence assessed for mesoscale eddy boundaries detected from altimetry is constrained by the impossibility of current altimeters to resolve ageostrophic submesoscale motions.

Epidemic Dynamics of Vibrio parahaemolyticus Illness in a Hotspot of Disease Emergence, Galicia, Spain.

Galicia in northwestern Spain has been considered a hotspot for Vibrio parahaemolyticus infections. Infections abruptly emerged in 1998 and, over the next 15 years, were associated with large outbreaks caused by strains belonging to a single clone. We report a recent transition in the epidemiologic pattern in which cases throughout the region have been linked to different and unrelated strains.

Genomic Variation and Evolution of ST36 over the Course of a Transcontinental Epidemic Expansion.

is the leading cause of seafood-related infections with illnesses undergoing a geographic expansion. In this process of expansion, the most fundamental change has been the transition from infections caused by local strains to the surge of pandemic clonal types. Pandemic clone sequence type 3 (ST3) was the only example of transcontinental spreading until 2012, when ST36 was detected outside the region where it is endemic in the U.

Environmental Suitability of Infections in a Warming Climate: An Early Warning System.

Background: Some spp. are pathogenic and ubiquitous in marine waters with low to moderate salinity and thrive with elevated sea surface temperature (SST).

Objectives: Our objective was to monitor and project the suitability of marine conditions for infections under climate change scenarios.

Non-Cholera Vibrios: The Microbial Barometer of Climate Change.

There is a growing interest in the role of climate change in driving the spread of waterborne infectious diseases, such as those caused by bacterial pathogens. One particular group of pathogenic bacteria - vibrios - are a globally important cause of diseases in humans and aquatic animals. These Gram-negative bacteria, including the species Vibrio vulnificus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibrio cholerae, grow in warm, low-salinity waters, and their abundance in the natural environment mirrors ambient environmental temperatures.

Heat Wave-Associated Vibriosis, Sweden and Finland, 2014.

During summer 2014, a total of 89 Vibrio infections were reported in Sweden and Finland, substantially more yearly infections than previously have been reported in northern Europe. Infections were spread across most coastal counties of Sweden and Finland, but unusually, numerous infections were reported in subarctic regions; cases were reported as far north as 65°N, ≈100 miles (160 km) from the Arctic Circle. Most infections were caused by non-O1/O139 V.

Epidemiological investigation of a foodborne outbreak in Spain associated with U.S. West Coast genotypes of Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

We describe an outbreak of seafood-associated Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Galicia, Spain in on 18th of August 2012 affecting 100 of the 114 passengers travelling on a food banquet cruise boat. Epidemiological information from 65 people was available from follow-on interviews, of which 51 cases showed symptoms of illness. The food items identified through the questionnaires as the most probable source of the infections was shrimp.

Dissipative inertial transport patterns near coherent Lagrangian eddies in the ocean.

Recent developments in dynamical systems theory have revealed long-lived and coherent Lagrangian (i.e., material) eddies in incompressible, satellite-derived surface ocean velocity fields.