PANDEMIC
A pandemic is an infectious disease
that spreads over a large region, for example, on many continents or around the
world, affecting large numbers of people. A widespread disease with a stable
population of people with the virus is not a pandemic. Widespread diseases with
a stable population of people infected with the virus such as seasonal
outbreaks are usually not treated as they occur simultaneously in large parts
of the world rather than spread around the world. Throughout human history,
there have been numerous epidemics such as smallpox. The deadliest pandemic in
recorded history was the Black Death (also known as Plague), which killed an
estimated 75-200 million people in the 14th century. The term had not yet been
used but was the latest pandemic, including the 1918 flu (Spanish flu). Recent
epidemics include tuberculosis, the Russian flu, the Spanish flu, the Asian
flu, cholera, the Hong Kong flu, HIV / AIDS, and COVID-19.
Influenza-like
diseases can spread quickly — sometimes within a few days — to people living in
various parts of the world. The spread of the disease has been facilitated by
several factors, including increased risk of infection, the spread of
human-to-human transmission, and modern transportation, such as air travel.
Many of the infectious diseases that afflict humans are caused by diseases that
are beginning to develop in animals. Therefore, when a new infectious agent or
disease originates in an animal, monitoring organizations in the affected areas
have a responsibility to alert the World Health Organization (WHO) and to
monitor the infectious agent's behavior and activity and the spread of the
disease. The WHO is constantly monitoring the spread of disease worldwide
through a network of international surveillance centers. In the case of the
flu, which poses a major threat to humans, the WHO has developed a pandemic
preparedness plan that includes six phases of pandemic
warning, described as follows: Phase
1: very low
epidemic warning rate; indicates that the flu virus, which may have just
appeared or existed before, is circulating in animals. The risk of infection in
humans is low. Stage 2: isolated cases of virus transmission from
animal to human are identified, indicating that the virus has epidemic
potential. Stage 3: characterized by small outbreaks of disease,
usually caused by multiple cases of animal transmission to the individual,
although a limited amount of transmission from person to person may be present. Stage
4: human-to-human
transmission that causes ongoing infections in human communities. At this
stage, infection control is considered impossible but the epidemic is not
inevitable. The implementation of control measures to prevent the spread of the
virus is being emphasized in the affected parts of the world. Phase
5: marked by
disease transmission in two countries, indicating that the epidemic is imminent
and that the distribution of collected drugs and the implementation of disease
control strategies must be done urgently. Stage
6: characterized
by widespread and ongoing disease transmission among people. When the WHO
develops a pandemic warning rate, such as from level 4 to 5, it serves as a
signal to countries around the world to implement pre-determined disease
control strategies.
Throughout
history, epidemics such as cholera, epidemics, and flu have played a major role
in shaping human civilization. Examples of important historical epidemics
include the Byzantine Empire epidemic in the 6th century CE; the Black Death,
which began in China and spread throughout Europe in the 14th century; and the
1918-19 flu pandemic, which began in the US province of Kansas and spread to
Europe, Asia, and the islands of the South Pacific. Although epidemics are
often portrayed as emerging in the short term, today most infectious diseases
persist at a high rate of occurrence, occur worldwide, and can be transmitted
directly or indirectly. Such diseases as the modern epidemic include AIDS,
caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which is spread directly among
humans; and malaria, caused by the Plasmodium virus, is transmitted by
mosquitoes that feed on the blood of infected people. Influenza epidemics are
estimated to occur once every 50 years, although the actual duration of the
epidemic in some cases has been shorter. For example, following the 1918-19
epidemic, there were other 20th-century flu epidemics: the Asian flu pandemic
of 1957 and the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968. The virus that caused the 1957
epidemic, which lasted until mid-1958, was also responsible for a series of
epidemics that occurred annually until 1968 when the Hong Kong flu broke out.
The Hong Kong flu epidemic, which lasted until 1969-70, caused between one
million and one million deaths. The next flu pandemic occurred in 2009 when a
small strain of the H1N1 virus spread to many regions of the world. Between
March 2009 and mid-January 2010, more than 14,140 confirmed H1N1 deaths in the
laboratory were reported worldwide.
In
March 2020 a continuous outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as acute
Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV2) was declared a pandemic by WHO
officials. The SARS-CoV2 infection has produced a disease known as coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19); the disease was mainly manifested by fever, cough, and
shortness of breath. The outbreak began in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, when a
patient with pneumonia of unknown cause was admitted to a local hospital. In
the weeks that followed, the number of people infected with the novel virus
grew rapidly in Wuhan, and the disease spread to other parts of China. By early
2020 the COVID-19 had reached Europe and the United States, being transported
there by travelers from the affected regions. By the time the outbreak was
declared an epidemic, COVID-19 cases had been found in many countries around
the world, with about 130,000 confirmed cases and nearly 5,000 deaths.
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