SARS Outbreak

Throughout the history, influenza viruses have caused several pandemics or global epidemics, killing many people. For example, the influenza strike in 1918 to 1919 infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, which is one-third of the planet’s population at the time and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people. More than 25 percentage of the U.S. population were affected, and caused 675,000 deaths in U.S during the pandemic.(History, 2015). There were no effective treatments for this type of influenza and no available vaccines can prevent its spread during the period. (History, 2015) U.S government required general population to wear masks and other protective equipments in public areas, and many public places also closed due to the influenza strike. Health care providers tried everything they knew to save people, but none shows any evidence of effects. (National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI], 2015). Scientists found out that the influenza virus had invaded their lungs and caused pneumonia, which made so many people died from the pandemic (History,2015). Another influenza strike happened

An investigation was necessary to find the cause of the outbreak, and how to stop it from continuing to spread. The campus clinic was interested in testing the following nine patients: Sue, Jill, Anthony, Wanda, Maggie, Maria, Arnie, Marco, and Alvin. All of the students have similar symptoms and agreed to being tested except for Alvin.

Because of the uncertainties and evolving nature of infectious diseases, outbreaks can cause substantial fear in communities and in the general public. Such is the case with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003. It was the first serious infectious disease of the twenty first century and questions about its origin and treatment greatly outnumbered the answers.

At the first possible outbreak of SARS, the nurse will need to follow protocol. The initiation of the protocol begins with an assessment of the patient. A doctor will determine if the patient is possibly infected with SARS by following the physical and epidemiologic criteria. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention mandates reporting to the all cases where the patient has pneumonia of an unknown origin, and could have recently been exposed of the SARS virus [ (Center of Disease Control, 2005) ]. Once the report has been made the community health nurse should have all hospitalized patients with respiratory symptoms questioned on their recent history and possibilities of contact with the virus. Next, the community health nurse needs to educate staff and the community about possible ways to contract SARS, and encourage behaviors such as, frequent hand washing, covering their nose and mouth while coughing or sneezing, and using and properly disposing of tissues for respiratory secretions. [ (Center of Disease Control, 2005) ] Once health care members and the public are educated on the route of transmission they can prevent being exposed. Confirmed infected patients would be transferred to Seattle, where they can be in isolation rooms, patients can be more critically monitored, and research centers can be of benefit to

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.

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.

In December of 2014, an outbreak of measles, which started in Disneyland, resulted in nearly two hundred people being sickened across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The highly contagious respiratory disease spread for three months. Among those who contracted the illness, one developed severe pneumonia and multiple organ injury, while another suffered acute respiratory distress syndrome. So, why did an illness, which was purportedly eliminated sixteen years ago, experience a surge so dramatic that it caused more cases in 2014 than in the five preceding years combined? According to the CDC, the outbreak could be boiled down to one simple reason: “The majority of people were unvaccinated.” So while the California measles outbreak is a thing of the past, the fight to increase compliance with vaccinations continues. Although the benefits and safety of vaccinations are undisputed by the medical and scientific community, there are still sizeable groups of “anti-vaxxers” who refuse to vaccinate their children. These groups spread misconceptions, sometimes unknowingly, and become even more influential when coupled with the power of the internet and social media. Therefore, in order to increase compliance with routine vaccinations, the misconceptions of parents should be targeted, and legislation should be changed in order to prevent leniency and loopholes regarding vaccine exemptions.

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus, originally reported in Asia in February 2003 and spread to over two dozen countries before being contained (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2005). Once infected, individuals with SARS initially develop a high fever and other flu-like symptoms including headache, body aches and “overall feeling of discomfort” before, in most cases, progressing to pneumonia (CDC, 2005).

A mother of a young child called the Vermont Department on February 5 to report the possibility of a foodborne disease outbreak after her child aged 5 years and two other children of her neighbor aged 7 and 10 years became ill with a lot of vomiting and diarrhea that took place within an interval of 12 hours. The child’s sickness became severe that the mother took her to a local hospital where she was kept at the emergency department.

The Black Death can be considered to be the most dangerous disease outbreak in history. When this catastrophic event emerged, no doctor or priest had any idea why it was occurring or where it came from. Today we now know how it spread and the impact of the plague it had on the economy at the time.

The virus Ebola, or formally known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is something most, if not all, Americans have heard of in these past few months since it has taken American media by storm. Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness, with an astonishingly high case fatality rate. It is considered one of the world’s most virulent diseases and is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals or people ("Ebola Virus Disease"). This, however, is not the only aspect of Ebola that should be considered. Even though it is often difficult to accept that humanity has an innate stereotypical attitude and a dormant racism that surfaces in times of distress (like the Ebola outbreak), it is crucial to recognize that the virus Ebola has not only the power to evoke physiological harm, but also political and social harm. It is slowly worsening an already fragile Western society, weakened from previous years of blatant racism and constant fear. Therefore, the naive American public should care to examine the virus Ebola from a sociological viewpoint, in addition to a medical one. Western culture has peculiar views on global disease in the twenty-first century, especially since geographical location largely contributes to a global public health inequality. Consequently, the American media 's portrayal of people of color, specifically Thomas Duncan and President Barack Obama, contributes to and sheds light on the healthcare disparity in the United States.

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.

MERS-CoV is a respiratory disease that was first found in Saudi Arabia in 2012. This virus can cause people to get diseases such as the common cold to a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

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.

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.