The Effect of Infectious Diseases on Humanity Essay

Poor hand hygiene - spread of germs from one patient to another or spread for hands to surfaces.

Pathogens are everywhere. They are in people, animals, and the environment. Pathogens come in a wide variety. The types are fungal, bacterial, viral, and other parasites. All pathogens can be dangerous, but two of them are more dangerous. These two types that more dangerous are fungal and bacterial. While both fungal and bacterial pathogens cause illness, they differ in the way they are transmitted, the way they are treated, and the diseases they cause.

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.

Malaria: However, those who inherit just one copy of the mutation do not suffer too badly; in fact, they are resistant to malaria which defined as an infective disease caused by sporozoan parasites that are transmitted through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito; marked by paroxysms of chills and fever. The discovery told geneticists much about evolution and how harmful mutations can increase to relatively high levels within a population provided they confer some advantage. By understanding how

Diamond addresses many things about how interacting or being near different animals can cause different diseases that typically spreads to humans. Germs can be passed on from animals to humans when then can be passed on to other humans. All humans have different types of effects to these germs. Diamond says, “In an epidemic those people with genes for resistance to that particular microbe are more likely to survive than are people lacking such genes” (Diamond 201). Some people can be more immune to some diseases due to being more genetically resistant to the particular disease, but, there are others who are not immune to the diseases which can lead to death quickly. Those that are not immune to the disease can be wiped out causing them to die and not be able to create their own family. This can affect the way on how the individual differs in the way the germs effect them. Diamond says, “The rapid spread of microbes, and the rapid course of symptoms, mean that everybody in a local human population is quickly infected and soon thereafter is either dead or else recovered and immune” (Diamond 203). Generally, humans with weak immune systems usually die off without having a family and then, there are others that are immune to diseases. But if one person is exposed to the disease, many others are then exposed to it because of it spreading to others rapidly.

Pathogens can spread widely and affect many organisms at the same time. Several organisms evolve to become immune or to resist pathogens including humans and C. elegans. In this experiment, C. elegans avoidance assay plates were analyzed to determine if the C. elegans evolved to resist the pathogen S. marcerens.

believed that genetically aberrant hemoglobin evolved as a protection against malaria."(2) It has also been said that, "People with a single copy of a particular genetic mutation [sickle cell trait] have a survival advantage. One copy of the mutation confers a benefit." (3) Its quite interesting to find that original purpose of this gene was

In the mid 14th century, a devastating plague swept across the known world. This pandemic plague is most commonly known as the Black Death but has other alias such as The Great Pestilence and The Great Plague. The background essay states, “In five shorts years, it would kill between 25 and 45% of the populations it encountered.” The background essay also mentions “it would be the worst natural disaster and the single most destructive natural phenomenon in the history of the world.” This cataclysmic event drastically dwindled population sizes of Europe and the Middle East, breaking down civilizations, and leaving behind terror in survivors mindset.

The greatest adversary to the natives in the Americas was not the swords or guns of the invaders. It was the devastation brought by deadly diseases infecting an unsuspecting population that had no immunity to such diseases.

When Malaria is present and infects red blood cells, parasites can infect cells carrying defective hemoglobin which may result in death. Allele frequency changes over time depending on the pressures or circumstances facing a particular population. African populations are especially impacted by both malaria and sickle cell anemia. Depending on the impacted population, allele frequency often shifts and well suited organisms are likely to survive and allele frequencies can increase. When a population is effected by disease or other circumstances, allele frequency may decrease or change. HbA (normal hemoglobin) and HbS (defective hemoglobin) have varying frequencies and while the HbS gene is present in populations it is

Hospital acquired infections are one of the most common complications of care in the hospital setting. Hospital acquired infections are infections that patients acquired during the stay in the hospital. These infections can cause an increase number of days the patients stay in the hospital. Hospital acquired infections makes the patients worse or even causes death. “In the USA alone, hospital acquired infections cause about 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths per year”(secondary).

Sickle cell anemia is more common in sub-Saharan regions of Africa, where malaria is prevalent, than it is in regions where malaria is not common. This is because being heterozygous for sickle cell anemia in malaria-prone regions carries a fitness.

The Yellow Fever virus came from Central or East Africa. With transmission between primates and humans, the virus has been spread from there to West Africa. The virus was probably brought to the Americas with the slave trade ships from 1492 after the first European exploration. The first case of Yellow fever was recorded in Mexico by Spanish colonists in 1648. Consequently, the virus started to spread also in North America. In Philadelphia in 1793, more than the 9% of the population die. The American government had to escape from the city that was the temporary capital. One of the most famous outbreaks happen in Europe in Barcelona in 1821.How explains the article "The 'plague' of Barcelona. Yellow Fever epidemic of 1821", the outbreak of

Thousands of years ago, a genetic mutation occurred in people from the Mediterranean basin, India, Africa, and the Middle East. As the Malaria Epidemic attacked people of these countries, carriers of the defective hemoglobin gene survived. Carrying one defective gene means that a person has a sickle cell trait. Two parents with the trait will produce a child with sickle cell anemia. People of these countries migrated and spread to other areas. In the Western Hemisphere, where malaria is not much of a problem, having the abnormal hemoglobin gene has lost its advantage. Any child born from parents that each has the trait will be born with the disease.

Microbiology was a boon to eradicate mass destructive epidemics like rabies, small pox and many other infectious diseases.