Contagion : A Perspective Of A Worldwide Pandemic

The Black Death, a horrible pandemic plague that spread through all of Europe, taking 25,000,000 people along with it. In 1347, a mysterious pandemic appeared in the city-states of Italy just as Europe was recovering from famine. The Epidemic did not end until 1351 partly due to the belief of the people that this plague was spread through the air and was gods way of punishing them for their sins. Although this plague killed many people, its effects led life to the way it is today. The three most important effects of the Black Death on Western Europe were the changing relationships between people and the church, the People beginning to express their faith and

Contagion, hypothesizes what the world would go through in the event of a major health crisis and it illustrates the importance of the epidemiology field as it relates to the well-being of the population. The film exemplifies the epidemiology concepts of a pandemic, communicable diseases and disease prevention. This paper will relate these three concepts as they correspond to the epidemiology chapter in our community health text.

Politics played a tremendous role in the movie. The best example would be when doctor Gallun was competing with the French to be recognized as the founder of AIDS. Due to this conflict, the matter needed to be taken into court so that it could be resolved. The problem was that if there was a lawsuit, the process of creating a cure for the virus would take ten times as long. That is why doctor

Geraldine Brook’s novel, Year of Wonders is based on a true story which recounts a 17th Century Plague, which struck the English village of Eyam and put many in strife. The story revolves around the protagonist, Anna Frith as she develops strength throughout the novel from being a maid in the beginning of the novel and eventually becomes a midwife. Similarly, Steven Soderbergh’s Film, Contagion is set in 21st Century America, which narrates the epidemic of the MEV1 virus, which causes dispute amongst many characters and has a manipulative effect on the characters in the film. In both the text and the novel, Diseases not only attack individuals but also causes the breakdown in society. Diseases cause the greed and the want for money in some characters, which has a huge impact on society as a whole. Similarly, diseases cause the need for self-preservation in order to survive. On the other hand, diseases cause characters to lose faith.

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America is my chosen book to for the class. Following excerpts and reviews, the book challenges the darker side of medications and what they exactly do to patients. The number of mentally ill has been highest in the past two decades, and it not only plagues adults, but children as well. One would think that the advancements in medicine would prevent this statistic going up, but it has not. Robert Whitaker investigates into the matter and explains the dangers of the medications, such as anti-depressants.

First the Black Death also known as plague was an extremely contagious and deadly disease that virtually wiped out the entire nation of Europe. The Black Death originated in China and quickly spread to Europe. Due to traders and travelers this disease easily spread on. The people with the disease would give it to whoever was with them no matter who they are. The Black Death symptoms were very obvious. It started with a lump called a tumor under the armpit, but as time moved on so did the tumors. The tumors came all over your body in black and purple lumps and in about three days you would be dead.There was no medicine that could help you with this disease.

     When the satellite crashes to Earth, the special team of four people that the government had previously selected, was called to this building. They had samples of the organism, which was found by other people at the crash site sent to the building. They were going to use this sample to research the organism. They hoped to find out what it was and how it killed all of the people who lived in the small town in Arizona. Everything was going well with the research, until the virus started eating through plastic containers and the sterile suits that the workers were wearing. After time, almost all of the workers who were in the building had been killed by this virus. The only person that lived out of the five people who were on the selected team was Mark Hall.

In August of last year, an adult in Pueblo County, Colorado succumbed to the bubonic plague. The Health Department did not specify who it was, just saying that it was an adult. This was the first case of someone contracting the plague in Pueblo County since 2004. It is thought that the person caught the disease from fleas on a dead animal. According to the CDC, about seven people every year contract the plague in the United States.

In the film it showed, that over time many people died, it began with twenty million deaths in Italy. After the deaths the disease began to spread more and more, like wildfire it began to spread. After a while there was a mass death of ninety-thousand people in Venice, Italy. Also fifty percent of Florence, Italy was killed because of this ravaging epidemic. Over time this disease began to spread

In the infectious disease unit, the main focal point consisted of showing the audience how the spread of a major virus may occur in population. In this case, we were presented with two movies: Contagion and 28 Days Later. These movies both displayed an infectious disease, which is spread through animals causing harm to people. A scenario that presented in Contagion seemed to be realistic possibility because a simple transmission of disease from an animal can happen. If the virus is unknown and no vaccine is available, it could certainly cause a lot of harm to a large population of people. Likewise, another possibility was also presented in 28 Days Later, where the viewers see scientist talking about monkey being infected with a virus.

The three worldwide pandemic outbreaks of influenza during the 20th century occurred in 1918, 1957, and 1968. These pandemics were named according to where they thought the strands originated. However, the Spanish flu of 1918 was so-named because it was Spain that officially declared there was a pandemic outbreak. It likely began in the United States. Many diseases come and go so to speak, but influenza has been around for many years. Although influenza often preys on the young, old, or weak, new strains come along and all people become vulnerable.

In the film industry, many false accusations are made regarding science based facts in order to create a more dramatic plot to the story for the sole purpose of the viewer’s entertainment. These accusations essentially lead to the misinterpretations people have regarding real world scientific issues we are faced with on a daily basis. Although the majority of science fiction film producers like to play it fast and loose, producer Steven Soderbergh decided to take a more honest approach to his movie Contagion, in order to make our society more knowledgeable toward the destruction of pandemic-like viruses that have the ability to destroy about one percent of humanity. Viewers are exposed to the incredibly harsh and severe consequences of a pandemic

Contagion is a movie that was released in 2011 which is based on fear, greed, heroism and greed and involves a lot of sick people. This movie is very scary and provides lessons in the field of virology and epidemiology. The movie is set at ever-changing challenges as well as threats of microbial origin that lead to the origin of casualties who vary from few individuals to lots and lots of millions of people. It has been described as a global pandemic as it affected many people all over the world. The outbreak of the disease has been depicted from the rise, vaccination and the prevention methods of a new disease.

Now the conflict of the story is pretty self explanatory--cut to wife falling-- but seriously, the conflict introduced in the first act is about a viral outbreak that leads to a global pandemic. The movie describes the virus as a disease spread through fomites, which refers to uhh…--cut to scene where Kate Winslet explains fomites-- thanks Kate Winslet. [a disease that spreads through touch.]

Of the many diseases spread by insects, none are actually caused by the insects themselves but by other organisms passed on when they feed or bite. Insects are capable of spreading diseases caused by many different types of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses, protozoan and others. Mosquitoes have earned the title of "the most deadly creature on earth." This is due to the fact that they spread serious epidemic diseases such as Malaria, Yellow Fever, African Sleeping Sickness, and West Nile Virus.