Pandemics (Corona-Like) of Past, Present and Future !
The recent Pandemic Corona virus has bought to light about our global health care system. With world trying its best to restrain the devastating effects of n-CoVID 19, its hard not to believe that another pandemic is just around the corner.Lets see why there are chances of us seeing another potent pandemic in the future and what can be done to prevent them.
Pandemics — History and trends
The earliest recorded pandemic was a plague called Antonine plague that is believed to be either a type of small pox or measles which occurred during the second century.Other notable diseases include the plagues such as Plagues of Justinian, Great plague of London, Italian plague, Third Plague. However, the deadliest of all is the Black death or Bubonic plague. The estimated people who died due to this ailment was around 200 Million in the 14th Century(around half the entire Europe population).A fact to be noted is that the system of quarantine was actually introduced for the first time to control the spread of the disease in the city of Venice (no prize for guessing the country in distress).Majority of the above mentioned sickness was caused due to a type of bacteria called as Yersinia pestis. These usually originate from infected rodents/rats that are handled by humans directly. Sometimes, fleas acts as a vector, carrying the body fluids of infected rodents into the humans thereby affecting the individual.
The New World saw a different illness called smallpox, which was one of the earliest pandemics caused by viruses. This has consumed more than 50 million lives since 16th Century. Smallpox truly became a pandemic due to the travel explorations and advents made by the Europeans to explore the rest of the world.Then a series of flu caused a lot of illness in humans like Russian Flu, Asian Flu, Hong Kong Flu etc in 20th Century. Spanish flu was the deadliest of all flu killing an estimated 50 million at time of 1916–1918.The point to be noted is that the World War I had a death of 40 million in span of 4 years (1914–18) which was less than what Spanish flu inflicted upon us. Another deadly disease named HIV was also found during the latter half of the 20th century which originated from the chimpanzee. 21st century saw the rise of few other virus sickness like SARS, MERS, Ebola . Swine flu was the deadliest virus of the 21 st Century with 200,000+ deaths in a year. Flu is a common name for Influenza virus that causes illness with symptoms like soar throat, running nose etc. SARS, MERS, n-CoVID 19 were caused by corona family of viruses.All these type of pandemics originated due a new strain of viruses that were found in mammals such as pigs, bats, camels, chimpanzees etc.
Present and the Future
The current pandemic of nCoVID -19 has travelled right from the Wuhan to the World. Except Antarctica, all the other continents have been affected by this dreadful disease.Spanish flu has few similarities with Corona virus. Like many other pandemics both are a type of zoonotic disease, which means it spreads from animal to animal. The fatality rate has been estimated to be around 2.5 to 3.5% percent for both the diseases.
Scientist also use a basic method to find the infectiousness of the disease. This method called as Reproduction number — R0 or “R naught”. This R0 number suggests us about how many persons on average will be infected by the person who is already sickened by the disease. For example Influenza diseases like Spanish flu , Russian flu or all the other kinds of flu have a R0 of 1.5 to 2 persons whereas the n-CoVID 19 has a average R0 rate of 2.0–3 persons. Both these flu and Corona affects the respiratory parts of the humans.
Future Pandemics too might have few common traits that were found throughout our history. The relevant viruses which caused pandemics in the past such as Influenza viruses, corona viruses must be studied with care by the doctors and scientists.The air-borne diseases have a higher potential of spreading in a flash than diseases which spread via physical contacts/droplets. It might not show any symptoms during the initial infection. Many people may be susceptible to the newer types of viruses that haven’t been in contact with humans yet. The rate of infection might be fast but the rate of morality may be low. This is because the pathogen may run out of host bodies if the mortality rate is high thereby wiping out the disease spread extensively.
Added to this there are enormous number mammals to be discovered in oceans. To put things into perspective, almost 95% ocean is yet to be discovered. Around an estimated 2–3 million species of marine animals to be discovered. These may contain any potential pathogen that can cause the next pandemics. Another way is the exploration of space where we may have contact with any external life pathogen that may harm and infect the humans. Even the technology we use today can mutate the microbes that can cause deadlier disease which are resistant to a particular type of vaccine.
Precaution and prevention
The few of general precautionary measures include the restricted use of the antibiotic drugs. The excess usage of antibiotics can cause the bacteria to resist the drugs to form a “super-bug” that can suppress the drug immunity. For example, new type of TB called as Multi Drug Resistance Tuberculosis(MDR-TB) was found which resists the normal TB drugs effect. Hence reduce the usage of antibiotic drugs is recommended.
Save Earth and its environment to reduce the impact of the damage caused by humans to wild animals. The major changes such as climate change by human activities will cause the microbial organism to evolve and reduce the immunity of the animals thereby increasing the probability of new disease being carried by the animals which in turn spreads to other animals.
Organisations such as WHO can take up the work of organising and making volunteers to work effectively on containing the spread of diseases than monitoring the situation alone.
Personal hygiene is one thing that we must all be aware of and practising it routinely will improve our immunity as a whole by reducing the risk .
Adapt technologies such as CRISPR which are used for editing and modifying the gene to cure and prevent untreatable disease.
In a nutshell, we must always find a right balance while moving forward in terms of technology and save Earth from our grievous acts in order to avoid the probability of pandemics in future.
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