H1, N1 (MEXICAN HUMMER MODEL CAR?) PANDEMIC DISRUPTS WORLD TRADE, PANICS WORLD POPULATION, ESPECIALLY JOE BIDEN, VP OF COMEDY!

Posted by Sterling Cooper Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 9:09 AM 0 comments


WARNING, hearing the real story may sometimes stop the panic caused by world health experts such as Joe Biden, our Vice President of comedy and president of the US Senate, as well as Janet Napolitano, the well known and highly experienced expert in keeping us all safe from every imaginable evil, including the H1 Ni (Mexican Hummer automobile?).

HIDE UNDER YOUR DESKS, DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE, DO NOT GO TO SCHOOL AND STOP GOING ANYPLACE THERE ARE PEOPLE. JOE BIDEN ADDED TO THAT PANIC BY INTERJECTING HIS OPINION THAT ADDED TO THE FEAR OF GOING OUTSIDE.

Ms. Napolitano last week contributed her statement that sounded sort of like this, " I am not a doctor, and actually know very little about diseases, especially diseases from Mexico, but I am from Arizona, so I am familiar with what people from Mexico look like, and please note those now crossing your ranch properties illegally from Mexico, if they appear to be sweaty, coughing and sick, should not be touched, and you should wash your hands as a precaution, just in case."

As an MD, specializing in infectious diseases, I have seen it all during the last 30 years, now I make a tub of popcorn, gather the family in front of the most scary TV coverage of the current PANDEMIC reported on by people who just read a teleprompter, and apparently did not bother to actually get some facts, and laugh till we all have to go to the bathroom.

It is as the Saturday Night Live crew was doing a PANDEMIC skit on every news channel.

I would hate to see what would happen if a newer version of the famous ORSON WELLS fake attack from Mars was broadcast on the radio today? Would people all start jumping out of windows to save themselves from being taken back to the Mother Ship?

It seems that recently, all our news starts on the DRUDGE REPORT, or some internet blog site or is Twittered, and wow, everyone now accepts as fact any nonsense that they saw on the sites or got tittered from their twitty, friends.

Well folks, I can only do so much but I want to do my little part in actually giving you some facts, before you walk on the other side of the street upon seeing a Mexican outside.

In fact, I heartily suggest taking advantage of the now greatly reduced travel deals to all the Mexican resorts, if you want to visit on the cheap.

PANDEMIC, SCHMENDEMIC!

Billions of dollars in trade, retail sales and countless billions more will be lost from the panics all over the world.

Here are the simple facts, NOT reported by our teleprompter reading news reporters for your consideration and deeper thought, from a medical point of view, the facts as gleaned from my years working with these diseases.

First of all, do not fear all Mexicans or Mexican pigs. I just saw a report how Egyptian authorities announced the killing all all pigs as a precaution (another Joe Biden must live there too).

You are more likely to DIE just being in any space such as your workplace, on a bus, plane, touching any thing others have touched, shaken hands, hugged someone, every day of your life!

What, you may ask in shock?

Yes, folks, statistically, every day in the USA, about 100 people DIE, yes DIE, from every form and type of FLU viruses, all of or most of which are or have been identified previously. That total is 36,500 PEOPLE ANNUALLY....understand-36,500 people DIE from other infectious FLU type of viruses!

Should we not add those hundred people to the PANDEMIC totals reported?

Well, now definitions come into play.

What exactly is a PANDEMIC?

In medical circles, the big picture definition, so that every non-medical person like Joe Biden can understand it, is that it is an infectious disease that is a new strain, appears to be widespread and can be transmitted through human contact with an infected person.

The word pandemic is mostly used to explain a previously not identified virus, that appears to spread, and spread quickly all over the world for instance.

Let's face it, it makes sense every day not to have contact with a sick appearing person, wash your hands and avoid having sweaty strangers breathing on you. Do not come to work if you are sick ( that may be not possible in the US, since cranky bosses may expect you, as the sole receptionist at the company to be there-infecting all visitors of course).

But folks, do not fear the Mexicans, yet.

President Obama, in his 100 day speech yesterday, immediately announced that he was writing a check to somebody for $1.5 BILLION to fight this H1 N1 virus. It truly would have helped if he added that to cancer research, a thousand MRI machines sent to rural hospitals of some other more worthy medical cause.

I thought he was talking about a new Chrysler or GM car model that was being planned, the new and green H1 Ni (sounded like a Hummer model).

Needless panic, needless spending, needless press reporting, when we could all be watching the current LOST episode at its usual time spot instead.

For further information, I am posting additional information on all the other Pandemics throughout the ages so you can compare those that killed million, to the single death so far from the new Hummer virus, the H1 N1 that the public is now panicked about.

My suggestion is to run out to the nearest Taco Bell and order some of that spicy chicken burrito, that may help warn off the virus, especially of all the employees washed their hands after hugging their relatives visiting from their native Mexico ( just a joke of the times, do not leave angry comments my last name is Latino sounding and I am originally from the Philippines).

Now some information to consider:

There have been a number of significant pandemics recorded in human history, generally zoonoses which came about with domestication of animals, such as influenza and tuberculosis. There have been a number of particularly significant epidemics that deserve mention above the "mere" destruction of cities:

  • Plague of Athens, 430 BC. Typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops, and a quarter of the population over four years. This disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread; i.e. it killed off its hosts at a rate faster than they could spread it. The exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years. In January 2006, researchers from the University of Athens analyzed teeth recovered from a mass grave underneath the city, and confirmed the presence of bacteria responsible for typhoid.[2]
  • Antonine Plague, 165–180. Possibly smallpox brought to the Italian peninsula by soldiers returning from the Near East; it killed a quarter of those infected, and up to five million in all.[3] At the height of a second outbreak, the Plague of Cyprian (251–266), which may have been the same disease, 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome.
  • Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, was the first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague. It started in Egypt, and reached Constantinople the following spring, killing (according to the Byzantine chronicler Procopius) 10,000 a day at its height, and perhaps 40% of the city's inhabitants. The plague went on to eliminate a quarter to a half of the human population that it struck throughout the known world. [4][5] It caused Europe's population to drop by around 50% between 550 and 700.[6]
  • Black Death, started 1300s. Eight hundred years after the last outbreak, the bubonic plague returned to Europe. Starting in Asia, the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe in 1348 (possibly from Italian merchants fleeing fighting in the Crimea), and killed 20 to 30 million Europeans in six years;[7] a third of the total population, and up to a half in the worst-affected urban areas.[8] It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the 18th century.[9] During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.[10] The Third Pandemic started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading plague to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[11]

Cholera

  • First cholera pandemic 1816-1826. Previously restricted to the Indian subcontinent, the pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.[12] It extended as far as China, Indonesia (where more than 100,000 people succumbed on the island of Java alone) and the Caspian Sea before receding. Deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 are estimated to have exceeded 15 million persons. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917. Russian deaths during a similar time period exceeded 2 million.[13]
  • Second cholera pandemic 1829–1851. Reached Russia (see Cholera Riots), Hungary (about 100,000 deaths) and Germany in 1831, London in 1832 (more than 55,000 persons died in the United Kingdom),[14] France, Canada (Ontario), and United States (New York) in the same year,[15] and the Pacific coast of North America by 1834. A two-year outbreak began in England and Wales in 1848 and claimed 52,000 lives.[16] It is believed that over 150,000 Americans died of cholera between 1832 and 1849.[17]
  • Third pandemic 1852–1860. Mainly affected Russia, with over a million deaths. In 1852, cholera spread east to Indonesia and later invaded China and Japan in 1854. The Philippines were infected in 1858 and Korea in 1859. In 1859, an outbreak in Bengal once again led to the transmission of the disease to Iran, Iraq, Arabia and Russia.[18]
  • Fourth pandemic 1863–1875. Spread mostly in Europe and Africa. At least 30,000 of the 90,000 Mecca pilgrims fell victim to the disease. Cholera claimed 90,000 lives in Russia in 1866.[19]
  • In 1866, there was an outbreak in North America. It killed some 50,000 Americans.[17]
  • Fifth pandemic 1881-1896. The 1883-1887 epidemic cost 250,000 lives in Europe and at least 50,000 in Americas. Cholera claimed 267,890 lives in Russia (1892);[20] 120,000 in Spain[21]; 90,000 in Japan and 60,000 in Persia.
  • In 1892, cholera contaminated the water supply of Hamburg, Germany, and caused 8606 deaths.[22]
  • Sixth pandemic 1899–1923. Had little effect in Europe because of advances in public health, but Russia was badly affected again (more than 500,000 people dying of cholera during the first quarter of the 20th century).[23] The sixth pandemic killed more than 800,000 in India. The 1902-1904 cholera epidemic claimed over 200,000 lives in the Philippines.[24]
  • Seventh pandemic 1962-66. Began in Indonesia, called El Tor after the strain, and reached Bangladesh in 1963, India in 1964, and the USSR in 1966.

Influenza

Main article: Influenza pandemic
  • The Greek physician Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine", first described influenza in 412 BC.[25]
  • The first influenza pandemic was recorded in 1580 and since then influenza pandemics occurred every 10 to 30 years.[26][27][28]
  • Influenza pandemics in 1729-1730, 1732-1733, 1781-1782, 1830, 1833-1834, 1847-1848.[29]
  • The "Asiatic Flu", 1889–1890, was first reported in May of 1889 in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. By October, it had reached Tomsk and the Caucasus. It rapidly spread west and hit North America in December 1889, South America in February–April 1890, India in February-March 1890, and Australia in March–April 1890. It was purportedly caused by the H2N8 type of flu virus. It had a very high attack and mortality rate. About 1 million people died in this pandemic."[30]
  • The "Spanish flu", 1918–1919. First identified early in March 1918 in US troops training at Camp Funston, Kansas. By October 1918, it had spread to become a world-wide pandemic on all continents, and eventually infected 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. Unusually deadly and virulent, it ended nearly as quickly as it began, vanishing completely within 18 months. In six months, some 50 million were dead;[31] some estimates put the total of those killed worldwide at over twice that number.[32] An estimated 17 million died in India, 675,000 in the United States[33] and 200,000 in the UK. The virus was recently reconstructed by scientists at the CDC studying remains preserved by the Alaskan permafrost. They identified it as a type of H1N1 virus.[citation needed]
  • The "Asian Flu", 1957–58. An H2N2 virus caused about 70,000 deaths in the United States. First identified in China in late February 1957, the Asian flu spread to the United States by June 1957. It caused about 2 million deaths globally.[34]
  • The "Hong Kong Flu", 1968–69. An H3N2 caused about 34,000 deaths in the United States. This virus was first detected in Hong Kong in early 1968, and spread to the United States later that year. This pandemic of 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people worldwide.[35] Influenza A (H3N2) viruses still circulate today.

Typhus

Typhus is sometimes called "camp fever" because of its pattern of flaring up in times of strife. (It is also known as "gaol fever" and "ship fever", for its habits of spreading wildly in cramped quarters, such as jails and ships.) Emerging during the Crusades, it had its first impact in Europe in 1489, in Spain. During fighting between the Christian Spaniards and the Muslims in Granada, the Spanish lost 3,000 to war casualties, and 20,000 to typhus. In 1528, the French lost 18,000 troops in Italy, and lost supremacy in Italy to the Spanish. In 1542, 30,000 people died of typhus while fighting the Ottomans in the Balkans.

In the Thirty Years' War, an estimated 8 million Germans were wiped out by bubonic plague and typhus fever.[36] The disease also played a major role in the destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée in Russia in 1812. Felix Markham thinks that 450,000 soldiers crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812, of whom less than 40,000 recrossed in anything like a recognizable military formation.[37] In early 1813 Napoleon raised a new army of 500,000 to replace his Russian losses. In the campaign of that year over 219,000 of Napoleon's soldiers were to die of typhus.[38] Typhus played a major factor in the Irish Potato Famine. During the World War I, typhus epidemics have killed over 150,000 in Serbia. There were about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus in Russia from 1918 to 1922.[38] Typhus also killed numerous prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps and Soviet prisoner of war camps during World War II. More than 3.5 million Soviet POWs died in the Nazi custody out of 5.7 million.[39]

HIV and AIDS

Main article: AIDS pandemic

HIV went directly from Africa to Haiti, then spread to the United States and much of the rest of the world beginning around 1969.[40] HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is currently a pandemic, with infection rates as high as 25% in southern and eastern Africa. In 2006 the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women in South Africa was 29.1%.[41] Effective education about safer sexual practices and bloodborne infection precautions training have helped to slow down infection rates in several African countries sponsoring national education programs. Infection rates are rising again in Asia and the Americas. AIDS could kill 31 million people in India and 18 million in China by 2025, according to projections by U.N. population researchers.[42] AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90-100 million by 2025.[43]

Smallpox

Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the Variola virus. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century.[44] During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.[45][46] As recently as early 1950s an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year.[47] After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979. To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated.[48]

Measles

Historically, measles was very prevalent throughout the world, as it is highly contagious. According to the National Immunization Program, 90% of people were infected with measles by age 15. Until the vaccine was developed in 1963, measles was considered to be deadlier than smallpox.[49] In roughly the last 150 years, measles has been estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide.[50] In 2000 alone, measles killed some 777,000 worldwide. There were some 40 million cases of measles globally that year.[51]

Measles is an endemic disease, meaning that it has been continually present in a community, and many people develop resistance. In populations that have not been exposed to measles, exposure to a new disease can be devastating. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of the natives who had previously survived smallpox.[52] The disease had ravaged Mexico, Central America, and the Inca civilization.[53]

Effects of colonization

See also: Globalization and disease

Encounters between European explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. Disease killed the entire native (Guanches) population of the Canary Islands in the 16th century. Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors.[54] Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 1600s. In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans.[55] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.[56] Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases.[57] Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous peoples had no such immunity.[58]

Smallpox devastated the native population of Australia, killing around 50% of Indigenous Australians in the early years of British colonisation.[59] It also killed many New Zealand Māori.[60] As late as 1848–49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 Hawaiians are estimated to have died of measles, whooping cough and influenza. Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly wiped out the native population of Easter Island.[61] In 1875, measles killed over 40,000 Fijians, approximately one-third of the population.[62] The disease decimated the Andamanese population.[63] Ainu population decreased drastically in the 19th century, due in large part to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into Hokkaido.[64]

Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus' voyages. The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions of Europe.[65] The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today. Syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance.[66] Disease killed more British soldiers in India than war. Between 1736 and 1834 only some 10% of East India Company's officers survived to take the final voyage home.[67]

As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organized a mission (the Balmis expedition) to transport the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies, and establish mass vaccination programs there.[68] By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans.[69] From the beginning of the 20th century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers.[70] The sleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.[71] In the 20th century, the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to lessening of the mortality rate in many countries due to medical advances.[72] World population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to an estimated 6.7 billion today.[73]

Tuberculosis

One–third of the world's current population has been infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and new infections occur at a rate of one per second.[74] About one in ten of these latent infections will eventually progress to active disease, which, if left untreated, kills more than half of its victims. Annually, 8 million people become ill with tuberculosis, and 2 million people die from the disease worldwide.[75] In the 19th century, tuberculosis killed an estimated one-quarter of the adult population of Europe;[76] and by 1918 one in six deaths in France were still caused by TB. In the 20th century, tuberculosis killed approximately 100 million people.[50]

Leprosy

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, is caused by a bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae. It is a chronic disease with an incubation period of up to five years. Since 1985, 15 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy.[77] In 2002, 763,917 new cases were detected. It is estimated that there are between one and two million people permanently disabled because of leprosy.[78]

Historically, leprosy has affected mankind since at least 600 BC, and was well-recognized in the civilizations of ancient China, Egypt and India.[79] During the High Middle Ages, Western Europe witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of leprosy.[80][81] Numerous leprosaria, or leper hospitals, sprang up in the Middle Ages; Matthew Paris estimated that in the early 13th century there were 19,000 across Europe.[82]

Malaria

Malaria is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria.[83] Drug resistance poses a growing problem in the treatment of malaria in the 21st century, since resistance is now common against all classes of antimalarial drugs, with the exception of the artemisinins.[84]

Malaria was once common in most of Europe and North America, where it is now for all purposes non-existent.[85] Plasmodium falciparum became a real threat to colonists and indigenous people alike when it was introduced into the Americas along with the slave trade. Malaria devastated the Jamestown colony and regularly ravaged the South and Midwest. During the American Civil War, there were over 1.2 million cases of malaria among soldiers of both sides.[86]

Yellow fever

Yellow fever has been a source of several devastating epidemics.[87] Cities as far north as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston were hit with epidemics. In 1793, the largest yellow fever epidemic in U.S. history killed as many as 5,000 people in Philadelphia—roughly 10% of the population.[88] About half of the residents had fled the city, including President George Washington. Aproximately 300,000 people are believed to have died from yellow fever in Spain during the 19th century.[89] In colonial times, West Africa became known as "the white man's grave" because of malaria and yellow fever.[90]

Unknown causes

There are also a number of unknown diseases that were extremely serious but have now vanished, so the etiology of these diseases cannot be established. The cause of English Sweat in 16th-century England, which struck people down in an instant and was more greatly feared than even the bubonic plague, is still unknown.

Concern about possible future pandemics

Viral hemorrhagic fevers

Main article: Viral hemorrhagic fever

Some Viral Hemorrhagic Fever causing agents like Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever are highly contagious and deadly diseases, with the theoretical potential to become pandemics. Their ability to spread efficiently enough to cause a pandemic is limited, however, as transmission of these viruses requires close contact with the infected vector, and the vector only has a short time before death or serious illness. Furthermore, the short time between a vector becoming infectious and the onset of symptoms allows medical professionals to quickly quarantine vectors, and prevent them from carrying the pathogen elsewhere. Genetic mutations could occur, which could elevate their potential for causing widespread harm; thus close observation by contagious disease specialists is merited.

Antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, sometimes referred to as "superbugs", may contribute to the re-emergence of diseases which are currently well-controlled. For example, cases of tuberculosis that are resistant to traditionally effective treatments remain a cause of great concern to health professionals. Every year, nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are estimated to occur worldwide.[91] The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that approximately 50 million people worldwide are infected with multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB), with 79 percent of those cases resistant to three or more antibiotics. In 2005, 124 cases of MDR TB were reported in the United States. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) was identified in Africa in 2006, and subsequently discovered to exist in 49 countries, including the United States. About 40,000 new cases of XDR-TB emerge every year, the World Health Organization estimates.[92]

The plague bacterium could develop drug-resistance and become a major health threat.[93] Plague epidemics have occurred throughout human history, causing over 200 million deaths worldwide. The ability to resist many of the antibiotics used against plague has been found so far in only a single case of the disease in Madagascar.[94]

In the past 20 years, common bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Serratia marcescens and Enterococcus, have developed resistance to various antibiotics such as vancomycin, as well as whole classes of antibiotics, such as the aminoglycosides and cephalosporins. Antibiotic-resistant organisms have become an important cause of healthcare-associated (nosocomial) infections (HAI). In addition, infections caused by community-acquired strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in otherwise healthy individuals have become more frequent in recent years.

SARS

In 2003, there were concerns that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a new and highly contagious form of atypical pneumonia, might become pandemic. It is caused by a coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV. Rapid action by national and international health authorities such as the World Health Organization helped to slow transmission and eventually broke the chain of transmission. That ended the localized epidemics before they could become a pandemic. However, the disease has not been eradicated. It could re-emerge. This warrants monitoring and reporting of suspicious cases of atypical pneumonia.

Influenza

Main article: Influenza pandemic

Wild aquatic birds are the natural hosts for a range of influenza A viruses. Occasionally, viruses are transmitted from these species to other species, and may then cause outbreaks in domestic poultry or (rarely) give rise to a human pandemic. [95] [96]

H5N1 (Avian Flu)

Main article: H5N1

In February 2004, avian influenza virus was detected in birds in Vietnam, increasing fears of the emergence of new variant strains. It is feared that if the avian influenza virus combines with a human influenza virus (in a bird or a human), the new subtype created could be both highly contagious and highly lethal in humans. Such a subtype could cause a global influenza pandemic, similar to the Spanish Flu, or the lower mortality pandemics such as the Asian Flu and the Hong Kong Flu.

From October 2004 to February 2005, some 3,700 test kits of the 1957 Asian Flu virus were accidentally spread around the world from a lab in the US.[97]

In May 2005, scientists urgently call nations to prepare for a global influenza pandemic that could strike as much as 20% of the world's population.[98]

In October 2005, cases of the avian flu (the deadly strain H5N1) were identified in Turkey. EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said: "We have received now confirmation that the virus found in Turkey is an avian flu H5N1 virus. There is a direct relationship with viruses found in Russia, Mongolia and China." Cases of bird flu were also identified shortly thereafter in Romania, and then Greece. Possible cases of the virus have also been found in Croatia, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.[99]

By November 2007, numerous confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain had been identified across Europe [100]. However, by the end of October only 59 people had died as a result of H5N1 which was atypical of previous influenza pandemics.

Avian flu cannot yet be categorized as a "pandemic", because the virus cannot yet cause sustained and efficient human-to-human transmission. Cases so far are recognized to have been transmitted from bird to human, but as of December 2006 there have been very few (if any) cases of proven human-to-human transmission. Regular influenza viruses establish infection by attaching to receptors in the throat and lungs, but the avian influenza virus can only attach to receptors located deep in the lungs of humans, requiring close, prolonged contact with infected patients, and thus limiting person-to-person transmission.

Swine Influenza (H1N1)

Main article: Swine Influenza

With the 2009 outbreak of Swine Influenza A (H1N1), there is a fear that it possesses pandemic potential. In the latter half of April, 2009, the World Health Organization's pandemic alert level, which has been three for some years, was moved to four and then five.

Biological warfare

In 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Theodosia). After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe.[101]

The Native American population was decimated after contact with the Old World due to the introduction of many different fatal diseases. There is, however, only one documented case of germ warfare, involving British commander Jeffrey Amherst and Swiss-British officer Colonel Henry Bouquet, whose correspondence included a reference to the idea of giving smallpox-infected blankets to Indians as part of an incident known as Pontiac's Rebellion which occurred during the Siege of Fort Pitt (1763) late in the French and Indian War.[102] It is uncertain whether this documented British attempt successfully infected the Indians.[103]

During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted human experimentation on thousands, mostly Chinese. In military campaigns, the Japanese army used biological weapons on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.[104]

Spores of weaponized anthrax were accidentally released from a military facility near the Soviet closed city of Sverdlovsk in 1979. The Sverdlovsk anthrax leak is sometimes called "biological Chernobyl".[105] China possibly suffered a serious accident at one of its biological weapons plants in the late 1980s. The Soviets suspected that two separate epidemics of hemorrhagic fever that swept the region in the late 1980s were caused by an accident in a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.[106]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Avian influenza frequently asked questions" (in en). World Health Organization. December 5, 2005. http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/avian_faqs/en/. Retrieved on 2009-02-13. "A pandemic can start when three conditions have been met: a new influenza virus subtype emerges; it infects humans, causing serious illness; and it spreads easily and sustainably among humans."
  2. ^ "Ancient Athenian Plague Proves to Be Typhoid". Scientific American. January 25, 2006.
  3. ^ Past pandemics that ravaged Europe. BBC News, November 7. 2005
  4. ^ Cambridge Catalogue page "Plague and the End of Antiquity"
  5. ^ Quotes from book "Plague and the End of Antiquity" Lester K. Little, ed., Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750, Cambridge, 2006. ISBN 0-521-84639-0
  6. ^ The History of the Bubonic Plague
  7. ^ Death on a Grand Scale
  8. ^ Plague - LoveToKnow 1911
  9. ^ "A List of National Epidemics of Plague in England 1348-1665"
  10. ^ Jo Revill. "Black Death blamed on man, not rats | UK news | The Observer". The Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/may/16/health.books. Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
  11. ^ Plague. World Health Organization.
  12. ^ Cholera- Biological Weapons
  13. ^ The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in New York State
  14. ^ Asiatic Cholera Pandemic of 1826-37
  15. ^ The Cholera Epidemic Years in the United States
  16. ^ Cholera's seven pandemics, cbc.ca, December 2, 2008
  17. ^ a b The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in New York State - Page 2. By G. William Beardslee
  18. ^ Asiatic Cholera Pandemic of 1846-63 . UCLA School of Public Health.
  19. ^ Eastern European Plagues and Epidemics 1300-1918
  20. ^ Cholera - LoveToKnow 1911
  21. ^ "The cholera in Spain". New York Times. 1890-06-20. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E05EED7123BE533A25753C2A9609C94619ED7CF. Retrieved on 2008-12-08.
  22. ^ Barry, John M. (2004). The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History. Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-670-89473-7.
  23. ^ cholera :: Seven pandemics, Britannica Online Encyclopedia
  24. ^ 1900s: The Epidemic Years, Society of Philippine Health History
  25. ^ 50 Years of Influenza Surveillance. World Health Organization.
  26. ^ "Pandemic Flu". Department of Health and Social Security.
  27. ^ Beveridge, W.I.B. (1977) Influenza: The Last Great Plague: An Unfinished Story of Discovery, New York: Prodist. ISBN 0-88202-118-4.
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Bibliography

Further reading

  • Steward's "The Next Global Threat: Pandemic Influenza".
  • American Lung Association. (2007, April), Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis Fact Sheet. As retrieved from www.lungusa.org/site/pp.aspx?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35815 November 29, 2007.
  • Larson, E. (2007). Community Factors in the Development of Antibiotic Resistance. [Electronic Version]. Annual Review of Public Health. 28 pp. 437-447. As accessed November 29, 2007.
  • Bancroft, E. A., (2007, October). Antimicrobial Resistance It's Not Just for Hospitals. [Electronic Version]. JAMA 298(15) pp. 1803-1804. As accessed November 29, 2007.

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic"
I hope now you have some facts, please feel free to spead the word, maybe even to Joe Biden, so that he does not fear stepping outside his limousine.
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