People and pandemic... describe the history of global pandemics from pneumonia to plague to Spanish flue to anthrax to Covid-19 outbreak and analyse its economic and political impact based on total number of casualties till 31 may2020 through a pie chart.)
Answers
Explanation:
At the root of every pandemic is an encounter between a disease-causing microorganism and a human being”, emphasises Laura Spinney in her book, “Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and how it changed the world” , adding that pandemics are “shaped by numerous other events taking place at the same time - the weather, the price of bread, ideas about germs, white men and jinns.” A pandemic is as much a social phenomenon as it is a biological one. It cannot be separated from its historical, geographic, economic and socio-cultural context. History offers a mirror that helps discern patterns in biological behaviour, societal priorities and responses to these outbreaks.Pandemics and epidemics became part of the human condition after the domestication of animals, agriculture and urbanisation. Humans living in close proximity to animals allowed disease causing organisms to proliferate, evolve and jump from one species to another. Among pandemics caused by such cross species jump of a virus or bacteria the two biggest killer pandemics were plague and the “Spanish” flu (a misnomer as it did not originate in Spain). It is interesting to look at how pandemics behave and how we behave in pandemics , especially when looking at the two biggest killer pandemics and the latest one COVID-19.
Pandemics and Ports of Entry
Plague, unlike the other two, is caused by a bacteria (Yersinia pestis) transmitted from rats to humans by the rat flea. The classic bubonic plague is a severe disease, characteristically producing enlarged lymph nodes (“buboes”) and leading to extreme suffering, prostration and death. In the absence of antibiotics 50-80% of those who contracted this infection died from it. Compare that to a case fatality rate of 3-8% for the Spanish flu and an estimated 1% for COVID-19.
There were multiple waves of plague pandemic from the 6th century, to the Black Death between the 14th and 17th century and the modern plague pandemic, between the 1870’s and the early years of the 20th century. The Black Death and the modern plague pandemic probably are most relevant to the Indian context. Along with bubonic plague was a variant, the pneumonic plague, transmitted through respiratory secretions between humans, that had predominantly respiratory symptoms like severe pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) similar to the Spanish flu and COVID-19, though unlike the plague, Spanish Flu and COVID-19 are caused by viruses- the Influenza virus and the Novel-Coronavirus respectively.