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Pandemic

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A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν , pan , "all" and δῆμος , demos , "people") is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of people. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of infected people is not a pandemic. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected people such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide. Throughout human history, there have been a number of pandemics of diseases such as smallpox and tuberculosis. The most fatal pandemic in recorded history was the Black Death (also known as The Plague), which killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. The term was not used yet but was for later pandemics including the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu). Current pandemics include COVID-19 (SARS-CoV

Definition

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A pandemic is an epidemic occurring on a scale that crosses international boundaries, usually affecting people on a worldwide scale. A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic because the disease is neither infectious nor contagious.

Assessment

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Stages edit The World Health Organization (WHO) previously applied a six-stage classification to describe the process by which a novel influenza virus moves from the first few infections in humans through to a pandemic. It starts when mostly animals are infected with a virus and a few cases where animals infect people, then moves to the stage where the virus begins to be transmitted directly between people and ends with the stage when infections in humans from the virus have spread worldwide. In February 2020, a WHO spokesperson clarified that "there is no official category for a pandemic".a World Health Organization (WHO) influenza pandemic phase descriptions Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6 Post peak Possible new wave Post-pandemic Uncertain probability of pandemic Medium to high probability High to certain probability Pandemic in progress — — — Animal-to-animal infection only Animal-to-human infection Sporadic or clustered cases in hum

Management

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The basic strategies in the control of an outbreak are containment and mitigation . Containment may be undertaken in the early stages of the outbreak, including contact tracing and isolating infected individuals to stop the disease from spreading to the rest of the population, other public health interventions on infection control, and therapeutic countermeasures such as vaccinations which may be effective if available. When it becomes apparent that it is no longer possible to contain the spread of the disease, management will then move on to the mitigation stage, in which measures are taken to slow the spread of the disease and mitigate its effects on society and the healthcare system. In reality, containment and mitigation measures may be undertaken simultaneously. A key part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to decrease the epidemic peak, known as "flattening the epidemic curve". This helps decrease the risk of health services being overwhelmed, and pro

Current pandemics

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HIV/AIDS edit Although the WHO uses the term "global epidemic" to describe HIV ( "WHO HIV/AIDS Data and Statistics" . Retrieved 12 April 2020 . ), as HIV is no longer an uncontrollable outbreak outside of Africa, some authors use the term "pandemic". HIV originated in Africa, and spread to the United States via Haiti between 1966 and 1972. AIDS is currently a pandemic in Africa, with infection rates as high as 25% in southern and eastern Africa. In 2006, the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women in South Africa was 29%. Effective education about safer sexual practices and bloodborne infection precautions training have helped to slow down infection rates in several African countries sponsoring national education programs. citation needed In 2017, approximately 1 million people in the United States had HIV; 14% did not realize that they were infected. COVID-19 edit A new strain of coronavirus was first identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, Ch

Notable outbreaks

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This section needs expansion with: Dengue fever. You can help by adding to it. ( June 2020 ) In human history, it is generally zoonoses such as influenza and tuberculosis which constitute most of the widespread outbreaks, resulting from the domestication of animals. There have been a number of particularly significant epidemics that deserve mention above the "mere" destruction of cities: Plague of Athens (430 to 426 BC): During the Peloponnesian War, typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops and a quarter of the population. This disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread; i.e. it killed off its hosts at a rate faster than they could spread it. The exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years. In January 2006, researchers from the University of Athens analyzed teeth recovered from a mass grave underneath the city and confirmed the presence of bacteria responsible for typhoid. Antonin

Concerns about future pandemics

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Antibiotic resistance edit Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, sometimes referred to as "superbugs", may contribute to the re-emergence of diseases which are currently well controlled. For example, cases of tuberculosis that are resistant to traditionally effective treatments remain a cause of great concern to health professionals. Every year, nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are estimated to occur worldwide. China and India have the highest rate of multidrug-resistant TB. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that approximately 50 million people worldwide are infected with MDR TB, with 79 percent of those cases resistant to three or more antibiotics. In 2005, 124 cases of MDR TB were reported in the United States. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) was identified in Africa in 2006, and subsequently discovered to exist in 49 countries, including the United States. There are about 40,000 new cases of XDR-TB per y

Economic consequences

In 2016, the commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future estimated that pandemic disease events would cost the global economy over $6 trillion in the 21st century—over $60 billion per year. The same report recommended spending $4.5 billion annually on global prevention and response capabilities to reduce the threat posed by pandemic events, a figure that the World Bank Group raised to $13 billion in a 2019 report. It has been suggested that such costs be paid from a tax on aviation rather than from, e.g., income taxes, given the crucial role of air traffic in transforming local epidemics into pandemics (being the only factor considered in state-of-the-art models of long-range disease transmission ). The 2019-2020 COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a profound negative effect on the global economy, potentially for years to come, with substantial drops in GDP accompanied by increases in unemployment noted around the world. The slowdown of economic activity during the CO

Notes

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