Humanity have survived the Pandemics of the past, but not without losses. Today, Pandemics still remains as one of our greatest threats. Made up of an army that can't be seen by the naked eye, this invisible enemy is one of humanities most difficult to combat. With what we learned , we know that future pandemics are most likely to happen. The question is,can we better prepare ourselves to survive them and reduce losses.
by Ray Nelson
There's one area though where the world isn't making much progress ..and that's pandemic preparedness."
Bill Gates
Microsoft CE
"A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire," Bush said at the time. "If caught early it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it."
George Bus
Former U.S.President
The world is ill-prepared to respond to a severe influenza pandemic or to any similarly global, sustained and threatening public-health emergency.
World Health Or
Big Challenges
Their ability to mutate can make it difficult to develop an effective vaccine.
Mankind's ability to travel between counties / continents within a days time makes it difficult to contain the spread of infected people.
Because we can't see viruses and bacteria with naked eye, we usually only become aware of it's spread when numerous people become sick.
How To Fight It
This is usually achieve through disinfecting, quarantining, social distancing, and wearing P.P.E. (Personal Protective Equipment)
Treating the sick to improve their health and, if possible, to make it so their no longer infectious to others.
Vaccines make a person's immune from becoming infected by particular viruses and bacterium.
Worst Pandemics
...and how we survived them
Plague of Justinian (541–542 AD) CAUSE: Bubonic Plague DEATH TOLL: 25–100 million HOW WE SURVIVED: Over time the viruses to become less lethal.
AKA: The Black Plague CAUSE: Bubonic Plague DEATH TOLL: 200 Million HOW WE SURVIVED: Quarantines
AKA: 1918 Flu Pandemic CAUSE: H1N1 virus DEATH TOLL: 100 Million HOW WE SURVIVED: Over time the viruses to become less lethal.
AKA: Auto Immune Defiency Syndrome CAUSE: HIV Virus DEATH TOLL: 36 Million HOW WE SURVIVED: By reducing the spread. This was largely accomplished by educating the public how to protect themselves from getting infected.
CAUSE: Cholera DEATH TOLL: 1 million HOW WE SURVIVED: Identifying contaminated water sources and prevent people from drinking from them.
Onesimus an eslaved African shares with his slaveholder, Cotton Mather. the knowledge of inoculation, a procedure that Africa tribes used to prevent the spread of diseases such as smallpox. Cotton Mather pushed for innocalation in Boston during the smallpox outbreak saving many lives.
1796
1796
Edward Jenner develops the smallpox vaccine which is the first successful vaccine.
" Following the arrival of the Spanish in the Caribbean, diseases such as smallpox, measles and bubonic plague were passed along to the native populations by the Europeans. With no previous exposure, these diseases devastated indigenous people, with as many as 90 percent dying throughout the north and south continents." History.com