From Black death to Corona Virus: A summary of the study of Pandemic/global disease plague And their impact on the society 1345-2019

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The presence of Pandemic is not a recent phenomenon, it has been in man’s history before the 21^st century. Diseases have been in man history; but it becomes a pandemic/global issue when it spreads around the world.

My first knowledge of pandemics was in European history class where we studied the black death also known as the Boubonic plague. This pandemic was estimated to kill about   75–200 million people in the 14th century.

It is important to know what pandemic means, for better understanding. Pandemic is a disease that transcends a wide geographic area beyond borders, region and continent. It affects  a high population all around the whole world. According to (Porta 2014) A pandemic is defined as “an epidemic occurring over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries, and usually affecting a large number of people”

Different perspective has risen regarding the reasons why some disease recognized as pandemic happen. The perspectives differs, the two looked at in this work is the medical and religious perspective. The medical perspective is that pandemics happen and is caused by Viruses, bacteria among others while the religious perspective is that the end time is near.

Anyways, throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics examples includes black death known as bubonic plague of the 14^th century , Spanish flu known as the 1918 influenza pandemic, small pox, syphilis, tuberculousis, cholera, yellow fever, malaria, HIV/AIDS,   2009 flu pandemic (H1N1) and the most recent  corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The first pandemic this post would look at is the  Black death of the 14^th century. From 1345 in Europe was known to be a period in world history and European history  to  be filled with a combined onslaught of bubonic and pneunomic plague know as the black death , it kept on returning periodically for about 300 years. There are different views from where it originated from as some believe that it got to the black sea from the Gobi desert of Mongolia. From the black sea, it spread to Italy  the to western Europe along trade route. Documents showed that once beaten  by a flea, the person developed enormous swellings in groin and arm pit, black spots on leg and arm, diarrhea, coughing of blood etc. It had clinical and health effect, caused great hardship, economic down turn. from 1331 to 1353, the pandemic had deaths worldwide which was estimated at 75 million people-200 million people

The second is the Spanish flu known as the 1918 influenza pandemic ravaged the world as it infected about 500 million people and there was a record of about 20-100 million death.

Another pandemic to look at is the small pox, caused by the variola bacteria infection, it had a devastating impact in history as it was said that when Europeans invaded the America, the local Americans were infected by the small pox and there was a death rate of about 90% of the American locals

Syphilis is a pandemic that ravaged the society, it was evident from 1495 and was hidden because of it nature as it was a sexually transmitted bacterial infection. it was sometimes called the French disease.

HIV/AIDS is an example that have atrophied the society.

In 2019, a new strain of virus/ disease was discovered  namely Coronaviruses (COVID 19 ) it is a zoonotic disease  and  causes illness ranging such  common cold, dry cough, shortness of breath, headaches, sore throat, fatigue, aches and pains. The disease can become severe and the patient would have to face Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).

In other to prevent contacting this one must take into consideration of different hygienic practices which includes washing of hands, avoiding crowded place,

The impact of pandemic on the society and world at large varies from economic impact whereby the economy would face a standstill as people who no longer go to work, transportation would be stopped, financial institution would be on hold. trade, travel and commerce would be on hold. Health wise there would be high death rate, morbidity and mortality over a wide geographic area . Social Impact is that there are cases of clashes between citizens and states, lack of law and order, population displacement, and heightening social tension and discrimination. Pandemics can also increase tensions and political stress in a society.

Reference

Porta M., ed. 2014. A Dictionary of Epidemiology. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 10. The Later Middle Ages, 1300-1500.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pandemic accessed 18/3/2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic accessed 18/3/2020

Chapter 17 Pandemics: Risks, Impacts, and Mitigation Nita Madhav, Ben Oppenheim, Mark Gallivan, Prime Mulembakani, Edward Rubin, and Nathan Wolfe. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK525302/ accessed 18/3/2020

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019 accessed 18/3/2020

https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus accessed 18/3/2020

http://covid19.ncdc.gov.ng/ accessed 18/3/2020

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-impact-on-global-economy-financial-markets-in-6-charts.html accessed 18/3/2020