Avian Plague Thesis

The black plague, also known as the bubonic plague, swept its way across Europe beginning in 1346 A.D. , killing an estimated thirty to fifty percent of the total population. The plague was spread by fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, and was carried over oceans by hitchhiking rats and pet gerbils. The plague outbreak that decimated the population was transported by infected Christian merchants

People of the Old World had domesticated pigs, horses, sheep, and cattle(1), which had acted as pathogens to infect the Europeans with diseases. In addition, diseases were constantly circulated with centuries of war, exploration, and city building. During the process of natural selection, disease-intolerant

75 to 200 million people died from the Bubonic Plague it was estimated about 2\3 of the European population died. Bubonic Plague hurts the Immune system by attacking an invading it. The only way to stop the Bubonic plague is by antibiotics and prescription drugs that destroy the virus. If not treated it will enter the bloodstream and attacks the lungs. Which could give the body Pneumonic plague which is deadly and the Pneumonic plague will give people hepatitis which will give the body fatigue and muscle weakness. The cells in the body system fights off bad pathogens. It keeps the body from getting infected with viruses and diseases like the flu. The Bubonic plague entered the Immune System by changing it form to disguise itself so it will let it in when it is in the Immune System. It attacks by shutting it down and kills cells inside. So the body cannot fight it off. Then it enters the bloodstream and without the immune system it cannot be stopped because the immune system fights off the virus. And without it fighting off viruses the body is prone to any diseases and viruses like the t cell which keeps the flu virus away from the body. And the Bubonic plague kills the t cell which now it is prone to the flu. And it also attacks the b cell which makes antibodies which helps the body become healthier and safer.

The book When Plague Strikes, is about 3 deadly diseases. It 's about the Black Death, Smallpox, and AIDS. Each of these diseases can cause a serious outrage of death. The book also tells about how doctors try to come up with treatments, medicines, and antibiotics to try and cure these diseases. All these diseases got the best out of everyone. Some people reacted differently than others with these diseases. All the diseases came in play in A. D. 1347, when the Black Death broke out for the first time in what’s today is know. As southern Ukraine.

In the 14th century the Black Death engulfed Europe killing an estimated 50 million people. The pandemic is considered extraordinary because it did so in a matter of months. This disease was carried by fleas, the Bubonic Plague is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis, found mainly in rodents, in this case in rats, and the fleas that feed on them.

The Bubonic Plague was a spreading disease. It infected and killed most of the population of Europe within a few years. The plague began spreading in 1348 when fleas caused this infection when they bit animals such as rats. The bacteria entered the skin through the flea bite which soon infected the lymph nodes. These rats stowed away on trade ships which quickly passed this deadly disease to humans. The Bubonic plague was very disastrous to the European society until it finally began to slow down in 1351. It killed so many people due to its rapid spreading. It lowered the religious belief and trust in God by many people in the community. Also, the local physicians lacked the knowledge of the plagues symptoms and its cure.

The Bubonic Plague or the Black Death has been in the history books since the medieval times. This deadly disease has claimed nearly 1.5 million lives in Europe (Gottfried). The Black Death hit Europe in October of 1347 and quickly spread through most of Europe by the end of 1349 and continued on to Scandinavia and Russia in the 1350s. Not only did the plague effect the European population by killing one-third to two-thirds (Gottfried), it also hurt the social and economic structures of every European society.

In England , bubonic plague on average killed at least one-third of all inhabitants between 1348 and 1349. In London alone, one out of two people died during the visitation. The bottom line is that every English man, woman, and child at the time encountered plague in some way, and all feared it.

One of the great impacts of 14th century was Black Death, which end up with huge devastation throughout the half part of the world. In contrast, one of the pandemic like AIDS is considerable to most destructive disease in this present-day. Both diseases, remarked horridly in humankind and throughout the world. Even though, both Black Death and AIDS played dangerous role in over the world and conveying different controversy, but both of these establish the new aspect of the society and greatly impacted on Globalization.

Wild aquatic fowl, ducks in particular, serve as a reservoir for the Influenza virus to transmit into poultry and then to humans. Infected birds shed flu viruses in their saliva, nasal secretions, and feces (CDC, 2004). The current virus seen in Asia is denoted as H5N1 and was first seen in terns in South Africa in 1961 (CDC, 2004). The first human seen infection of the avian H5N1 viruses was in 1997 in Hong Kong in a three- year old boy (Ruben, 2005). The outbreak involved 18 cases and killed 6, one third of the confirmed infected population (Rueben, 2005). In three days 1.5 million birds were killed in order to prevent further spread. A new pandemic is now on the horizon with recent outbreaks in poultry in the eight Asian countries of Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam since 2004 (CDC, 2005). As of July 5, 2005, there have been 108 reported human cases of the H5N1 virus with 54 deaths (CDC, 2004). In wake of a

For the first time in history, large groups of humans, animals, waste material, and rubbish were concentrated together in the same households5. This close proximity conferred advantages to select organisms who were quickly able to jump species, infecting the human population in large numbers for the very first time. Examples included smallpox, tuberculosis and measles, influenza and malaria. It was around this time also that the rat attached itself to human societies and has prospered ever since.

The Bubonic Plague, more commonly referred to as the "Black Death," ravaged Europe between the years 1347 and 1350 (Herzog, 2000). During this short period, according to Herzog (2000), 25 million people (which were about one third of Europe's population at the time) were killed. In another article, Herlihy (1997), however, claimed that two thirds of Europe’s population were killed. Nevertheless, it is ascertained that thousands of people died each week and dead bodies littered the streets. Once a family member had contracted the disease, the entire household was doomed to die. Parents abandoned their children, and parent-less children roamed the streets in search for food. Victims, delirious with

The great plague came in three different forms. The types of illness differed in symptoms, spread and sufferings. The bubonic plague was the diseases most common form. It was named this due to swelling called “buboes” of the victim’s lymph nodes. “These tumors could range in size from that of an egg to that of an apple” (The Black Death). The longest expectancy with this form of illness didn’t often exceed one week. The second variation of plague was known as the “pneumatic

​The origin of the disease has been described at the end of the movie where we find out that a bat with a virus known as paramyxovirus that infects a pig. The pigs that are for human consumption were located near a forest that was being cut down. The pig in turn infects human beings of the earth through a chef. The agent which is very infectious is known as MEV-1 and its potential spread is estimated at 6-7 which suggests that the virus is highly transmissible from one person to the next. The virus has been compared to that of a smallpox virus with a mortality rate of up to 30%.

The avian flu is a flu strain that is transmitted from infected poultry to humans either via the infected bird its self or its fecal matter. This strain of flu is more serious then the normal seasonal flu strains that come around, and for this reason increase the chance of this disease becoming an epidemic. This flu strain is more dangerous because as it spreads to a new species, such as humans, for a host then it is more likely to mutate and become more likely to pass human to human, or just become more deadly for its hosts. All human cases of avian flu have been directly linked to people that were in close contact with birds and poultry on a regular basis and showed no signs of human to human transfer. The British