A History of Pandemics
As humans have spread across the world, so have infectious diseases. Even in this modern era, outbreaks are nearly constant, though not every outbreak reaches pandemic level as COVID-19 has.
Hope you find the stuff in here educational and interesting!
AIDS pandemic and epidemic: 1981-present day
Source SBS
AIDS has claimed an estimated 35 million lives since it was first identified. HIV, which is the virus that causes AIDS, likely developed from a chimpanzee virus that transferred to humans in West Africa in the 1920s. The virus made its way around the world, and AIDS was a pandemic by the late 20th century. Now, about 64% of the estimated 40 million living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) live in sub-Saharan Africa.
For decades, the disease had no known cure, but medication developed in the 1990s now allows people with the disease to experience a normal life span with regular treatment. Even more encouraging, two people have been cured of HIV as of early 2020.
H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic: 2009-2010
Coresight Research
The 2009 swine flu pandemic was caused by a new strain of H1N1 that originated in Mexico in the spring of 2009 before spreading to the rest of the world. In one year, the virus infected as many as 1.4 billion people across the globe and killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people, according to the CDC.
The 2009 flu pandemic primarily affected children and young adults, and 80% of the deaths were in people younger than 65, the CDC reported. That was unusual, considering that most strains of flu viruses, including those that cause seasonal flu, cause the highest percentage of deaths in people ages 65 and older. But in the case of the swine flu, older people seemed to have already built up enough immunity to the group of viruses that H1N1 belongs to, so weren't affected as much. A vaccine for the H1N1 virus that caused the swine flu is now included in the annual flu vaccine.
West African Ebola epidemic: 2014-2016
Science in the news (Harvard University)
Ebola ravaged West Africa between 2014 and 2016, with 28,600 reported cases and 11,325 deaths. The first case to be reported was in Guinea in December 2013, then the disease quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. The bulk of the cases and deaths occurred in those three countries. A smaller number of cases occurred in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, the United States and Europe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
There is no cure for Ebola, although efforts at finding a vaccine are ongoing. The first known cases of Ebola occurred in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, and the virus may have originated in bats.
Zika Virus epidemic: 2015-present day
Source-Live science
The impact of the recent Zika epidemic in South America and Central America won't be known for several years. In the meantime, scientists face a race against time to bring the virus under control. The Zika virus is usually spread through mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, although it can also be sexually transmitted in humans.
While Zika is usually not harmful to adults or children, it can attack infants who are still in the womb and cause birth defects. The type of mosquitoes that carry Zika flourish best in warm, humid climates, making South America, Central America and parts of the southern United States prime areas for the virus to flourish.
Pandemics have been in circulation on planet earth throughout history. Lives lost, economies shattered but this time we are a lot more prepared. More medical supplies, vast scientific knowledge and public health systems although struggling at times, are able to hold their own.
One thing to be thankful for is that in comparison to past pandemics, we have a lot to build on, by that I mean we have a headstart in knowing what the pathogen is.
The months ahead are going to be tough but humans are built for survival. I believe we’ll get through it. What we need most of all now is a sharing of information, ethical scientists collaborating to produce an effective vaccine. Yep, that’s what we need folks!
Image source-Bangkok Post
SO HAVE WE LEARNT ANYTHING FROM THE SPANISH FLU?????
Air travel was in its infancy when Spanish flu struck. But there are few places on Earth that escaped its horrific effects. Its passage across the world was slower, carried by railway and passenger steamer rather by airliners. Some places held out for months, or even years, before the flu arrived and wreaked its terrible toll.
But some places did manage to keep the flu at bay, often by using basic techniques that are still being used 100 years later. In Alaska, one community on Bristol Bay escaped the flu almost unscathed. They closed schools, banned public gatherings, and shut off access to the village from the main road. It was a low-tech version of the travel restrictions that have been used in some areas today, such as China’s Hubei province and northern Italy, in an effort to stop the coronavirus spreading.
Doctors have described the Spanish flu as the “greatest medical holocaust in history”. It was not just the fact it killed so many, it was that so many of its victims were young and healthy. Normally, a healthy immune system can deal reasonably well with flu, but this version struck so quickly that it overwhelmed the immune system, causing a massive over-reaction known as a cytokine storm, flooding the lungs with fluid which became the perfect reservoir for secondary infections. Older people, interestingly, were not as susceptible, perhaps because they had survived a very similar strain of flu which had started to spread through human populations in the 1830s.
ARE WE LEARNING ANYTHING FROM THE PAST???
Recently, there have been multiple new reports about locust attacks in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. An alert has been issued in Delhi, the national capital, as well.
Looking at the vivid images of locusts shared by the news channels or across various social media platforms, I was reminded of a story. It was the story of “Moses and the Ten Commandments” as mentioned in the Bible. To be more specific, it was the story of ten plagues inflicted upon ancient Egypt as a divine punishment.
In the Biblical tale, Moses, a prophet and leader of the Hebrews whom the Jewish people consider to be their ancestors, warns the Pharaoh (ruler) of Egypt that his kingdom would be ravaged by plagues if he did not free the Israelites and allow them to go back to Canaan.
As the story goes, the Israelites came to Egypt at the invitation of a Pharaoh. Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), was the leader of the group that migrated to Egypt. At some point, these people lose their status as free people and are enslaved on the orders of a Pharaoh who is jealous of their growing prosperity.
Meanwhile Moses, born to a Hebrew woman, grows up in the royal household of Egypt, not knowing his true identity. In due course of time, he becomes aware of his descent and is ordered by God to lead his people back to their ancestral land– Canaan. This is what bring us to the story of the ten plagues of Egypt.
Now, of the ten plagues, the eighth one was that of locusts. Moses warned the Pharaoh that God will send so many locusts that they will "cover each and every tree of the land and eat all that is there to be eaten". Every time the Pharaoh refused, a fresh plague was inflicted upon his kingdom.
The other plagues were equally scary: The river Nile’s waters turning into blood, frogs, lice, flies, mass livestock die-offs, boils, hailstorm and fire, darkness for three days and finally, the death of every firstborn, human or animal, in ancient Egypt.
But it’s just a story. Well, what if I say it’s more than that. If we look closely, some eerie examples begin to emerge that reflect a crisis of Biblical proportion! Let me explain. There are the locusts, of course. Interestingly, their route into India has been via Africa. They have travelled with the winds from East Africa over the Red Sea (whose waters Moses parted) to the Arabian Peninsula; and from there over Iran into Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Like the river Nile’s waters turning red, the waters of two of the Ecuadorian Amazon’s most important rivers has turned black after two pipelines carrying crude oil burst. This has caused grave hardship to the indigenous people, who are already on a fire-fighting mode due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Ah…yes, how could we forget COVID-19. Just like the pandemic, one of the plagues that afflicted the ancient Egyptians mentioned people developing boils all over their bodies. And then, there was the plague of mass die-offs. The COVID-19 disease has also spread misery and death across the globe. Even the animals including tigers, dogs and cats are threatened by it.
There was also the plague of hailstorm and fire. The world in 2020 has already seen the fires of Australia and the Amazon in 2019. This year, it has seen the cyclone Amphan, which has devastated large parts of India and Bangladesh.
As for the three days of darkness, similar scenes were seen recently in the Sahara Desert in Africa. Niamey, the capital of Niger, turned red recently. Why? Because it is the Harmattan season when dry winds blowing across the Sahara pick up sand and leave behind deposits (of sand) across regions falling on their path. It may be seasonal, but the photographs that emerged from Niamey were nothing short of apocalyptic.
So what do we do now? The religious as well as the superstitious have already shared their version saying these calamities represent the wrath of God over sins committed by humans over the years.
For the rationalists, it is not God but something similar that is taking revenge: Nature. Now this is an explanation that would be agreeable to theists and atheists alike. And there may be some merit to it. How?
Our irrational consumption habits have led to factory farming, a method of raising animals that concentrates large numbers of animals into confined spaces. The illegal wildlife trade is also a consequence of our greed of the forbidden and exotic.
Add to this our never-ending love of fossil fuels, responsible for global warming, desertification, and pollution–all of which in turn lead to cyclones like Amphan, sandstorms like the ones in Niamey and yes, the attacks of locusts that are being attributed to climate change.
So will we also be in the same boat as the ancient Egyptians from Moses’ tale? Fortunately, we still have time to make amends. If we desist from the known ills, may be, God, Nature or whoever is bearing down on us might give us a second chance. But the clock is ticking and we need to hurry.
A brilliant article from DowntoEarth.
Cheers mate, good on you. One pic of the devastating effects of the locust plague.
Look on the bright side though, you can feed on locusts, remember the bit about the multitude feasting on locusts and wild honey?
Source: BBC
Throughout history, nothing has killed more human beings than infectious disease. Covid-19 shows how vulnerable we remain – and how we can avoid similar pandemics in the future.
I'm baby sitting today but will return later to talk a bit more about this.
good effort Mask ... for you