Epidemic Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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In epidemiology, an epidemic is defined as a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period of time, at a rate that substantially exceeds “normal,” based on recent experience. However, the definition of epidemic can be subjective depending on what is “normal.” For example, a few cases for a very rare disease like rabies may be classified as an epidemic, while cases of a common disease, as the common cold, would not.

Epidemics can be categorized based on the size or the intensity of appearance of cases of a new disease. For example, an epidemic may be restricted to one locale (an outbreak), more general (an epidemic) or even global (pandemic). Also, when diseases occur at a constant but relatively high rate in the population, it is termed as endemic. An example of an endemic disease is malaria in some parts of Africa (for example, Liberia) in which a large portion of the population is expected to get malaria at some point in their lifetimes.

Epidemics can also be classified by their pattern of transmission. The disease can be transmitted by a vector, from person to person, or from a common source such as contaminated water.

Some of the famous examples of epidemics include the bubonic plague epidemic of Medieval Europe known as the Black Death, the Great Influenza Pandemic concurring with the end of World War I, and the current AIDS epidemic, which some also consider to be of pandemic proportions.

The Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, was a devastating pandemic, which first struck in China. This plague traveled to Europe by rat-infested Italian ships trading goods across the Mediterranean Sea. The plague reached England by the late 14th century and within 4 years (1347-51) it had killed over a million people, one-third of Europe’s entire population. Including Middle Eastern lands, India, and China, the Black Death killed at least 75 million people, taking the form of the most dangerous pandemic ever to be known in the history of epidemics. In addition to its massive effect on mortality, the Black Death irrevocably changed Europe’s social, economic and cultural structure. The deaths changed the size of the civilization, which further led to changes in trade, the church, art, and music. The disease was completely eradicated in Europe only at the beginning of the 19th century, but survives in other parts of the world (Central and Oriental Africa, Madagascar, and Asia).

Great Influenza Pandemic

The Great Influenza Pandemic during the World War I killed more people than the war itself, somewhere between 30 and 40 million people. The origin of this influenza is not precisely known. It is thought to have originated in China and the war is believed to have accentuated its spread to take the form of a catastrophic pandemic. The pandemic affected everyone. With one-quarter of the United States and one-fifth of the world infected with the influenza, it was impossible to escape from the illness. The influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a global mortality rate at 2.5 to 5 percent compared to the previous influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1 percent. The age specific death rate for the age group 15 to 34 years due to influenza and pneumonia were 20 times higher in 1918 than in previous years. The Great Influenza Pandemic was the most calamitous infectious disease pandemic in U.S. history, which killed around 28 percent of the U.S. population. The effect was so severe that the life expectancy in the United States was decreased by 10 years. Like many other pandemics, this influenza pandemic also had profound influence on socioeconomic status of the people. According to John Barry, author of The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, even though it killed at least 40 million people in less than a year, the 1918 influenza pandemic’s most alarming consequences may have been that it nearly extinguished the basic humanitarian impulses that bind civil society together.

AIDS

At the beginning of the 21st century, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes the Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), has killed more than 25 million people since it was first detected in 1981. Nearly twice that many, 40 million, are living with the virus. Without some major breakthroughs, most of these people are expected to die during the next 10 years or so. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed between 2.8 and 3.6 million lives in 2005, of which more than half a million were children. Interestingly, over 90 percent of people infected with the HIV live in the developing world. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS, 1999) expects that this “proportion will continue to rise in countries where poverty, poor health systems, and limited resources for prevention and care fuel the spread of the virus.” Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the worst-affected region, with 23.8 million to 28.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2005. Just under two thirds (64 percent) of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa. South and southeast Asia is the second most affected region with 15 percent. If the current trends of HIV infection and mortality due to AIDS continue to hold, the HIV/AIDS epidemic will develop into a devastating pandemic. It will then dictate the size, growth, and age-sex structures of entire populations around the world.

Bibliography:

John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. (Viking, published by the Penguin Group, 2004);
Karen Stanecki, “The AIDS Pandemic in the 21st Century,” International Population Reports and U.S. Census Bureau, WP/02-2 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004);
Stephane Barry and Norbert Gualde, “The Biggest Epidemics of History,” La plus grande epidemie de l’bistoire, in L‘Histoire (2000).