Abstract:
Currently, the world is facing a number of challenges, of which Global climate change is a priority
area. Agriculture and livestock are amongst the most climate sensitive economic sectors in the developing
countries. Climate change affects livestock health through several pathways. These includes effects on
pathogens, such as higher temperatures affecting the rate of development of pathogens or parasites;
effects on hosts, such as shifts in disease distribution that may affect susceptible animal populations;
effects on vectors, such as changes in rainfall and temperature regimes that can affect both the distribution and
the abundance of disease vectors; and effects on epidemiology, such as altered transmission rates between
hosts. Furthermore, Climate change influences the emergence and proliferation of disease hosts or vectors and
pathogens and their breeding, development and disease transmission. Consequently, it affects distributions
and host–parasite relationships and its assemblages to new areas. Higher temperatures resulting from climate
change may increase the rate of development of certain pathogens or parasites that have one or more life cycle
stages outside their animal host. This may shorten generation times and, possibly, increase the total number
of generations per year, leading to higher pathogen/ parasite population sizes. Mammalian cellular immunity
can be suppressed following heightenedexposure to ultraviolet B. In particular, there is depression of the
number of T helper 1 lymphocytes, the cells involved in the immune response to intracellular pathogens.
Therefore, successful adaptations may be shown as better way of coping with the negative consequences of
climate change on livestock health. This review work was conducted to explore the likely impacts of climate
change on livestock health.
