The worst Ebola epidemic in history is raging right now in Africa. The deadly virus has already killed nearly 700 people, and several countries have effectively closed their borders.
According to recent reports, the disease has reached Lagos, the densely populated capital of Nigeria. To help you understand what's going on, we've put together a guide to modern epidemics and pandemics.
1 Epidemics happen every year. In every country
Despite all protective measures, since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been at least one epidemic in every country in the world. The largest in recent years is the H1N1 flu (which was originally called swine, then renamed due to its unfoundedness and unpleasant consequences for agriculture). In fact, it was a pandemic: the disease swept the entire planet from Brazil to Iceland and claimed about 284 thousand lives.
Of course, things are better now than in the Middle Ages, and some diseases are only found in laboratories. In particular, in 1977 the last case of smallpox was recorded, and now they are not even vaccinated against it. The number of deaths is now incomparably less than during the plague epidemics in the middle of the last millennium or even at the beginning of the 20th century during the Spanish flu epidemic - then millions died. And outbreaks are mainly in Africa and Asia. But Europe still remains under threat. And nothing can be done about it.
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2 Airplanes help epidemics spread across the planet
Eight million people fly around the world every day. This is a great opportunity for an epidemic to quickly turn into a pandemic. A person flies to another country even before symptoms appear, infecting other passengers and guests at the hotel. These people, in turn, fly to their home country, where they infect relatives, neighbors and colleagues. This is how, for example, the SARS pandemic began.
Reducing the number of flights when a disease is detected is pointless and can only slow the spread of the pandemic by several weeks. The proper effect will be only if air travel is prohibited at the earliest stage of the epidemic. And this is almost impossible, especially in developing countries, where infection most often begins. For this, there must be a good system of medical care and the absence of prejudices and superstitions among the population.
3 Most new diseases come from animals
Wildlife is the main source of new infectious diseases. The hunter kills the sick bat and brings the carcass home, the soup is made from it, after which the whole family dies from the virus. This scenario seems to be the most likely scenario for researchers in the case of the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa.
AIDS is transmitted to humans from chimpanzees. It is believed that this also happened while hunting and working with an infected body - the monkey immunodeficiency virus entered the human body and mutated into the form that is now called HIV. Bats appear to have infected people with the coronavirus, which causes atypical pneumonia.
But especially often the list of diseases of pigs and poultry is updated, giving us new strains of the influenza virus. Pigs can even serve as a kind of incubator: if an animal gets the flu from a duck and a person at the same time, as a result, it is likely that a new strain will appear. People will not be immune to it, which is likely to cause a pandemic.
4 We do not know how to treat many dangerous diseases
Over the past 50 years, mankind has come up with only about three dozen effective antiviral drugs. And they mostly fight HIV, herpes, and flu in their early stages. Firstly, it is quite difficult to create a medicine that would fight the virus and at the same time not harm the human body.
Secondly, it is very expensive and does not bring tangible profit. Finally, some viruses are too dangerous for the scientists themselves.
5 Antibiotics Stop Working and Superbugs Are Coming
As for bacterial infections like tuberculosis or gonorrhea, things are pretty bad here too: the World Health Organization announced the entry of the world into a post-antibiotic era. This means that in the near future any surgical intervention can become many times more dangerous, and a banal abrasion can lead to death from a bacterial infection.
The reason is the mutation of bacteria, which are becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics. The matter is aggravated by the fact that patients do not take the course of the drug to the end - this contributes to the survival of the most powerful bacteria. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to develop new antibiotics: the cost of development is high, and a drug can lose its effectiveness rather quickly.
6 Vaccines save several million people every year
We are now more than ever close to finally sorting out polio and closing it down in laboratories for good. This was achieved thanks to the work of 20 million volunteers from The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, who vaccinate children with oral vaccines. In 1988, 350,000 people became paralyzed every year due to polio. In 2013, just over 400 were infected.
It is possible to avoid outbreaks and epidemics of measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, rubella and 23 other diseases thanks to timely vaccination. WHO estimates that vaccines prevent up to three million deaths each year. This is greatly hampered by people's prejudice against vaccinations. So, after the publication of falsified data on the connection between vaccines and autism in the United States, for example, they announced the beginning of a new epidemic of whooping cough.
7 We have new ways to fight epidemics - for example, genetically modified mosquitoes
Through genetic engineering, we have learned to change the properties of mosquitoes. To combat dengue, the researchers decided to produce sterile males to reduce the insect population. Similar methods apply to malaria, for which there is no vaccine.
In the fight against viruses, there is also hope for monoclonal antibodies. They have been used in oncology for a relatively long time, but infectious diseases are currently rarely treated with their help. Moreover, these are very expensive drugs.
8 Superstition and political interests help spread epidemics
Resistance from the authorities and local prejudice also contribute significantly to the spread of disease. In Pakistan, 22 people have been killed in two years while vaccinating children against polio. In Afghanistan, the authorities and some representatives of the local population also strongly obstruct vaccination.
The ninth President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki believed that HIV did not exist. The Ebola virus is also denied by the inhabitants of the countries in which the epidemic has developed. Rumors of malefactors who inject a lethal injection and then sell the organs of a deceased person are gaining popularity. SARS has spread to many countries due to the incompetence of the Chinese authorities.
The fact is that the outbreak of an unknown respiratory disease has been carefully hidden for a long time. And the Saudi Arabian authorities initially did not allow researchers to study the origins of the Middle East respiratory syndrome.
9 Today, people continue to die of the plague
The plague has not disappeared anywhere, but we have learned to fight it well. China recently quarantined an entire city due to an outbreak of plague. Even in the United States, several people are infected with the plague every year.
For example, in 2008, biologist Eric Yorke performed an autopsy on a dead cougar and unexpectedly contracted pneumonic plague. Doctors attributed the symptoms to the flu, and a few days later York died. Several dozen people with whom he talked before his death took a course of antibiotics and did not get sick.
10 Obesity and the phantom disappearance of the genitals is also an epidemic
An epidemic is a widespread infectious disease. Therefore, it seems to be incorrect to say that there is an obesity epidemic in the world now. However, obesity is contagious. This was confirmed in a large-scale long-term study that covered more than 12 thousand people. Especially easily, as it turned out, close friends of a fat person become infected.
Epidemics are also psychosomatic. For example, in Africa and Asia periodically there are outbreaks of an epidemic of “disappearing penises”: it seems to a man that due to black magic his penis is reduced or disappears completely.
Such mass psychosis could have become just a curiosity in the news, if not for dozens of victims: "sorcerers" are often killed in droves. The phenomenon was first described in China, and then spread to some Asian countries and ended up in Africa. Fighting this epidemic is very difficult.
