Outlasting the SARS Epidemic

Historically Ebola has had a serious impact on human health and hygiene and still does due to the fact of no vaccine or treatment being discovered, but thanks to improvements in scientific and medical knowledge the virus itself is now controllable.

The pandemic struck the world and infected 1/3 of earth’s human population, killing over 50 million humans. The world’s top doctors have never witnessed anything of this killing magnitude besides the bubonic plague of 1348 but the transmissibility is of nothing they’ve ever seen in their lifetime or of recorded history. People abruptly became aware of the importance of health, and need of medicine and cleanliness.

SARS is a respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus that was thought to have originated in Guangdong China but was not reported until

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

In a response to the polio outbreak of 1916, Dr. Haven Emerson, the Health Commissioner for New York City, stated: “we have learned little that is new about the disease, but much that is old about ourselves.” The meaning of this has to do with the ideology that no matter the era, people have a common response to the outbreak of contagious disease. Human nature supplies us as humans with a common reaction to dealing with disease, and it is one that can be seen during the Black Death, polio epidemics, and ebola epidemics, as well as many other epidemics. These responses can be both positive and negative, and often have to do with containment of the disease, preventative measures - which may or may not be effective; and scapegoating. Although there may be individualized responses for each of these diseases, the way in which the health-care officers and the public handle the outbreak of disease generally follows the same pattern overall.

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

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.

The author gives an example of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in Taiwan, where 131-132 people were placed under quarantine but only 12 people were found to have cases of SARS. SARS cases continued to climb in both Taiwan and China after the use of quarantine. The quarantine must be effective at protecting the public’s health. The effectiveness of quarantines is based on social characteristics, such as whether population accepts the quarantine or not, biological characteristics (like transmissibility, duration of infectiousness, the recovery rate), and individual characteristics (like wearing mask, avoiding public gathering). For example, the use of quarantine for SARS was unnecessarily harmful if not completely ineffective (Annas, 2006). Benjamin Franklin and George Annas argue that,” Those who would give up an essential liberty to purchase temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security” (Wynia,

The aftermath of this outbreak helped the world learn how to respond to deadly illnesses in an effective manor as well as moved the cause of science forward by striving to find a way to treat this disease. The event lead to the organizations responsible for controlling these outbreaks to grow and develop more proficient ways to battle the flu as well as many other sicknesses. Today, “international organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) provide leadership in global health matters. The WHO’s preparedness plans against influenza pandemics include six levels of pandemic alert, which determine the recommended actions it should take in conjunction with the international community, governments, and industry.6” This expansion has saved millions of lives as now flu vaccines are usually available in most communities as well as treatments for nearly every ailment known. Without these organizations influence the Swine Flu epidemic could have been much more devastating along with the hundreds of other disease that could have wiped out entire populations without the intervention of these groups. The government was also changed by this as they had

pandemics: the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu and the terror and

It is evident, one out of every 25 patients in an acute care setting acquires a HAI the United States alone (Bubb, et al., 2016). Further, HAIs result in a significantly higher morbidity, and mortality, lengths of stay, and cost of health care (McNeill, L. 2017); not to mention the negative health outcomes on families, and communities at large (bubb, et al., 2016). In addition, globalization is another factor that has perpetuated the transmission of infectious diseases as the world population has become more mobile.

Severe Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a respiratory illness that had recently been reported in Asia, North America, and Europe. SARS was first reported is Asia in February of 2003, over the next few months it spread to more than a dozen countries. By late July 2003, no new cases were being reported and the global outbreak was declared over by the World Health Organization. During this time period 8,098 people worldwide became infected with SARS and out of these 774 died. In the United States a total of 192 SARS cases had been reported, including 159 suspect and 33 probable cases. Of the probable only 8 had laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV infection. Luckily, no SARS relate deaths occurred in the US.

Infectious disease is considered an ever evolving issue world-wide. A number of health officials and idealists believed that the threat of infectious disease would have been eradicated by now.1 Infectious disease remains the leading cause of death across the globe and the third leading cause of death in the United States.2 Within the scope of infectious disease, the most common cause of illness is viral respiratory tract infections, also referred to as VRTI.3 Recently, a new strain of virus related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome commonly referred to as SARS has been identified.4,5 The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is a viral infection that affects the respiratory tract in humans and has recently been discovered in a small

The world has experienced a total of four pandemics within the twentieth century. These pandemics, as horrific and deadly as they are, have brought so much more positive advances to our health care system and how we prepare for biological threats. Although we are in the twenty-first century and we have advanced so far in healthcare, there is still the possibility of a deadly pandemic.

Back to the past, the impact of the extensive outbreak of SAR(Severe acute respiratory syndrome) which is a contagious and sometimes fatal respiratory illness.It began to plague China in February and March 2003, is multi-faceted and is affecting the country politically, economically and socially to various extents. Therefore, the economic recession had occurred in Hong Kong, which led to the reduced industry and many people were