This class of Epidemics in Society has taught so much about how the world has changed because of a few microscopic diseases and the damage they can cause impacting everyone around.  Various societies changed by the disease epidemics throughout history.  Some of the diseases that caused this disturbance are plague, Irish potato blight, and smallpox. Artifact 2- plague, the people believed that the Jews were responsible for bringing the Black Death upon them.  the people then set out to burn or torture or kill as many Jews as possible.  The church then lost control as the people began to take religion into their own hands.  They found no cure, but this disease led to a healthier society in the end.  Artifact 4- smallpox, the people found a way to prevent this disease with a vaccination and believed they could then do it for other epidemics to prevent all the death.  This disease also caused for the win of the war as the English used smallpox as a way to eliminate and weaken the Indians to take over their land and win the war.  This was the first biological war weapon used.  Artifact 5- Irish potato blight, the people began to starve and immigrate to the states.  This caused there to be a more diverse population, but also it helped to spread disease as now many people were living together in small, uncleanly rooms.  The perfect environment to spread a deadly disease.  All these diseases helped to alter the course of wars, medicines, and religions.

Societies made just as big of an impact on these diseases as the diseases made to the societies.  Humans made it easy for the disease to transfer to a human host.  Artifact 1- the appearance, in the beginning people were hunter gatherers so there was a small group, always on the move, having few children, and never around rotting food or feces.  Then the humans decided to settle down and start agriculture and domesticating animals.  Plagues rose now that humans were living side by side with animals and their rotting feces.  Also due to the humans cutting into the woods and going places they’d never been before they began to see those infections as they invaded that infection’s home.  The humans made it easy for diseases to hop over to infect them and become more dangerous.

Our modern society may be impacted by both established and by emerging/reemerging infectious diseases.  Artifact 9- spillover, has many emerging diseases that have no cure and strike fear into the hearts of people around the world.  Most of these emerging diseases are zoonotic which means are transferred to humans by animals.  The Zika virus infects many people, but has a devastating effect on pregnant women.  This affect causes panic through women as it causes for their child to be born with disability.  As what the virus does is it destroys the fetus’s brain tissue.  This impacts humans greatly as it destroys brain tissue and people then want to rid the world of mosquitoes, but that could cause its own dramatic effect on the world.  Another emerging disease is Ebola which is dangerous to the whole human population as it has a 90% kill rate of those that get infected with this disease. The only way to stop the spread of this disease is to isolate and quarantine those that become infected and those that have been in contact with the infected persons. The Nipah virus is transmitted through saliva and has a ¾ death rate if you become contaminated with the disease and is emerging.  Humans are very vulnerable to infectious diseases as there are so many different kinds and forms of these dangers.  It is easy for the diseases to be around with poor sanitation and weak immune systems.  Our modern society can be impacted greatly if one of these infectious disease gets out as people are not immune to these strands.  These diseases spread like wildfire once they pick up and would be hard to stop if not caught in time.  Millions of people could die if just one lucky disease gets their big break and takes off.  The results would be devastating and the world would be full or death and mourning.

Humans however, actually have a huge role in promoting the emergence of infectious diseases.  Humans can help in such a big way to promote getting rid of diseases.  With humans being aware they can help to end and get rid of the more dangerous epidemics.  Sanitation is a big thing, as with just living in a clean environment, having a toilet, washing your hands gets rid of infections that could be taken in by food and not being around rotting feces.  Also, humans can learn to live in better cohesion with the environment.  We need to live without destroying the environment and invading the diseases habitat.  As we keep invading and cutting down their homes they will find new homes within us.  This can be stopped by us by being more resourceful.

The artifacts have helped me to shape my learning so much about epidemics in societies and all about them.  In artifact 1- the appearance, I learned about how the spread of disease came about with humans settling down and not being very sanitary.  That what caused disease was use as we helped to nurture it.  In artifact 2- plague, I learned about how religion was actually a big part of the plague as everyone began to believe the Jews were at fault and took religion to a whole new level.  As the people that took religion too far killed the Jews and began a journey they believed Jesus took.  With suffering and whipping themselves, hoping God would save them as they were suffering for him and wanted to not suffer from the plague. In artifact 4-smallpox, I learned about how this was the first time recorded in history for a disease to be used as biological warfare and the first time a vaccination was created to stop the mass death happening at the time.  The way of finding a vaccine was interesting as they infected people with the real disease and they won the war by contaminating the Indian population so that they were too weak to fight and gave in to their enemy.  These are just a few of the interesting things I learned from the class Epidemics in Society as I learned so much more and valuable lessons I can use in my life to stay infection free.

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Emerging and reemerging diseases are critical to humans.  These diseases are generally from zoonotic sources meaning they are diseases transferred from animals to humans.  The disease jumps species and what was nonlethal in that species is lethal in ours.  More than 70% of our human diseases come from animals. This is a spillover that is enabling these diseases to spread all over the world.

The Zika virus is devastating to pregnant women. As this disease destroys the fetus brain tissue and causing birth defects.  The child will never be normal or have a normal childhood.  Zika first appeared in 1947 in Africa and is transmitted by mainly mosquitos, however it can be obtained by blood transfusion and sexual intercourse.  This disease has caused people to want to kill off mosquitos despite the consequences as they are more worried of the children being born defective.

The Ebola virus is devastating to everyone as it has a 90% death rate of those that get the disease.  It first appeared in West Africa in 1976 and is highly contagious as it spreads through normal human contact and bodily fluids.  The disease came from bats as a young boy ate an infected bat and it spread from there.  We now know that from contact trace which helps to discover who patient zero was and where it went from there.  The infected persons should have been isolated and the people they were in contact with should have been quarantined however they did not recognize what the disease was.  If they isolated the cases the disease would have died out and no longer be in humans.

The Nipah virus is another emerging disease from the Bangladesh/ Asia region. ¾ of the people infected with this disease die.  This disease comes from fruit bats as they like to drink the same sap as the humans do.  These bats contaminate the sap however and give us the Nipah virus.  The virus is then transmissible through human saliva which can be very dangerous if they all drink the sap from the same cup.

We as humans are now vulnerable to all these emerging and remerging diseases.  This  is due to poor sanitation and even just taking care of the people we love that are sick because the disease spreads through contact.  Also, many people’s immune system is already weakened by something which is easier to infect.  We as humans keep invading the environment and going places we haven’t gone before. This now introduces whole new pathogens never seen before as they had their own separate habitat before.  We are the ones invading them. Us as humans are so unprepared for the disease to come next.  We are all linked together so we need to find a way to live in harmony.

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HIV was a serious disease from the beginning, but no one wanted to take notice it in. It came from chimpanzees in Africa, it is believed to have transferred blood from one of these monkeys to humans and then spread from travel.  So many social and cultural factors contributed to the epidemic of HIV. The US politicians were indifferent to this growing epidemic as they believed only gays and drugs users were the ones infected so only the sinful people would die and that was ok to them. The attitudes towards the victims of the disease and of just the disease was horrid.  Everyone was afraid to get it as their fate would be death, the victims were scared of rejection by families and communities as only the sinful people obtained this cursed disease.  The people would lose their support system, their job as they were heavily weakened by it, and friends.  These people became socially unacceptable.

There were so many factors that enhanced the ability of HIV to sustain transmission in humans.  This disease could go undetected for decades without showing symptoms causing mass spread of the disease.  There were shooting galleries to help with spreading infected blood with needle sharing and not cleaning the needles after use. Even blood transfusions and blood donating was causing mass spread of the disease as anyone could donate, but they were donating the disease as well.  There were also bath houses were gay men had their activities and they didn’t use protection causing more spreading. The factor that helped to limit the ability of HIV spreading further was education. Education that HIV was transmitted sexually and through blood not but regular contact.  This caused for people to start spreading awareness about using condoms so you wouldn’t contract the disease and to not share needles/use a new one each time.  Education was the biggest factor because once people weren’t afraid they began to help and solve the issue of many Americans dying from this disease.

The overall effects and impacts of the HIV epidemic on US society was huge.  Death was common for many of the people with the disease and the fear was spread wide from it. This impact led to people looking for the government to get involved and help to find a cure or treatment. Progress has been made in the US as people are now educated and know how HIV is spread and do not discriminate people if they have it. They had created a 3 drug concoction that would help to slow down the effects of aids and let you live a healthy life as you did before you had the disease. They also have testing, ART, PrEP, and PEP to help diagnose patients.  HIV is still very relevant today. In Mississippi, the people there are still very discriminate to HIV patients and many of the males there have it. The patients are disowned and very ill.  In towns this small, everyone knows everyone so they try to keep being gay and sick a secret but it harms them. The people of this small town don’t feel comfortable getting the help they need and have a hard time getting the supplies to live the long life they should have. Miami is the epicenter in the US of HIV. Most of their infections here progress into AIDS as many don’t complete their medicine.  Many people today still do not know that they have the disease which spreads it further. Even though there is testing and free health care they do not have transportation, family support, poverty stricken, and plain just don’t follow up.  Everyone thinks it is ok now that the disease has been diagnosed but it is not being contained and is continually being spread.  There should be no excuse for the people with HIV as medicine is provided to them so no one else gets sick.  They need to do their job in order to erase this disease.

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There are many societal and cultural factors that enhance the ability of cholera to cause pandemics. The transmission is how this disease is spread so rapidly.  It is a water and food borne illness and is an oral-fecal route which contaminates all as you can cook with it, drink it, and wash in cholera.  Cholera was originally associated with Hindu pilgrimages and holy festivals in the Ganges river in India as people would use it as a bathroom and what not.  The people of India did not have toilets causing fecal matter to be around and infecting people and the poor sanitation of cooking food, drinking water, and hygiene. It also caused epidemics by not showing any symptoms in people so they wouldn’t know they were sick and spread the disease to others.  It was then transmitted along the trade routes and by immigration.

The factors that limited the ability of cholera to spread to developed countries was that they had sewage systems to rid their fecal matter away from them so they wouldn’t become diseased and they had high hygiene. High hygiene causes less spread of the disease, just as not having fecal matter around. John Snow had a significant role in the transmission of cholera in London in 1854.  At this time London obtained water by companies that used water from the Thames.  One of these companies switched to a less polluted area in the Thames and less people got the disease.  He then hypothesized that it was the water being contaminated and giving the disease.  Henry Whitehead believed the miasma theory, but eventually jumped on board with Snow. He was a reverend and knew the community well and well enough to pinpoint the epidemics starting point to a sick baby contaminating the Broad street well.  This got the authorities to remove this well to eliminate a contaminated source. Filippo Pacini identified the cholera bacterium at the same time as Snow, but his paper was ignored.  He published his findings from under the microscope and continued to get no recognition even though he was correct. Then Robert Koch unaware of Pacini’s work observed and named the cholera.  He discovered the causative agent of cholera and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. The overall effects of sanitation improvements and public health systems were to complete sewage and water treatment systems.  These improvements led to cholera not being spread and cleaner environments for all to live in.

There are many factors that led to the continuing epidemics in the 21^st century.  The factors are the same as before poor sanitation and poor water quality is how this disease is still an epidemic even in this century.  Cholera is now epidemic in Haiti.  The factors that enabled this to occur was fecal matter made its way into a major source of drinking water and it was the El Tor biotype.  This all started after an earthquake and was made worse by flooding years later. The research statistics killed nearly 10,000 people and as of 2017 2,000 more cases have been reported. Some preventative measures that have been taken is providing safe drinking water, rehydration salts, and oral vaccination. What remains to be done it to have sewage and water systems in these countries as well as just having toilets and sanitation.  Cholera can easily be stopped with sanitation and having normal necessities like clean water and toilets.

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Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that can reemerge at any time.  There are so many factors that increase susceptibility to tuberculosis.  19^th century immigration to US tenements was one of these factors.  TB was romanticized from the ugly death it actually was.  The high population and the poor sanitary conditions created the perfect environment for it to bloom as it is transmissible by respiratory droplets. They had poor working conditions and were crowded into tenements.  The houses were dark, poorly ventilated, badly construct, poorly lit, and filthy.  Many people even lived with mud floors.  There were no windows in these living quarters until it was finally mandated.  The people lived with 30-40 people per room.  The stethoscope and skin test were invented to help determine if someone had tuberculosis.  They created sanatoriums for the treatment of patients with this disease as it provided rest and a healthy diet.  Contemporary factors of this disease was malnutrition, poverty, and the role of HIV.   The poor people could not afford the treatment of tuberculosis to stay in the sanatorium.  However, the death rate was the same to if you went to one or did not. Malnutrition and HIV caused you to be more immune to the disease as not being fed well and already having an infection weakened your immune system already. Leaving the people more susceptible to tuberculosis.

A factor that has led to resistant and extremely resistant tuberculosis is not taking the medicine correctly.  Without taking the medicine correctly the TB learns what the medicine is and builds immunity against it causing the medicine to no longer work against it. Also, causing tuberculosis to become stronger and more deadly.  The consequences of failure to diagnose and properly treat tuberculosis is death. It also causes tuberculosis to spread even more as it is spread in the air.  So now more people will have the disease and more people will die from it if the strand was resistant or if they fail to complete treatment/obtain treatment.  Tuberculosis will be around until we find a way to prevent and eradicate it.

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The potato was very important to the world around the time of the Irish Potato Blight.  The people mainly survived on only potatoes and milk and nothing more for their nutrition as together they had all the essential nutrients.    About half of the Irish community was solely dependent on this potato.  The societal and political factors that led to the severity of the potato blight was the massive population increase, the land owners being exploited and forced to export their crops to England, having poor housing conditions, and a low standard of living.  The pathogen associated with the potato blight was P. infestans known as HERB-1 mixed with the strain US-1.  The origin of the disease was it traveled from Mexico to North America to Europe perhaps on the potatoes used to feed the people on the ship as they crossed the sea.  Weather may have affected the potato as it had one of the coldest winters before, and also it has cool misty environment which helps to spread the disease.  The consequences of the blight on the Irish population was devastating.  Mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland took place.  About one million people died and a million people emigrated to mainly North America.  All these malnourished people let them to be vulnerable to diseases.  These diseases, measles, whooping cough, TB, cholera, are influenced by nutritional status.  The people were in famine and had no nutrition leaving them very vulnerable to die of starvation or disease as they had no strength.

Technologies used to modify genes has many potential benefits yet it has just as many risks to it.  Modifying genes could mean changing whole species to try to eliminate diseases or eliminate a species to rid the diseases.  The risks are high with modifying genes. If scientists were to change genes to change a species that change could change their whole wiring.  A new and worse disease could come out of it, just by trying to eliminate one.  The other way of eliminating a species could cause a cascade effect.  Everything on earth effects everything, if you try to get rid of mosquitos, they are a pollinator. Without the pollinating plants will die and with plants dying animals will die and eventually it will catch up to us and affect us drastically.  Another risk and possible benefit is changing embryos.  It could be good with fixing DNA sequences and having people not have disabilities.  The trouble is if this technology fell into the wrong hangs it could be used to build a superhuman that couldn’t be stopped.  Technology is a great thing to have to help rid diseases, however we need to use it properly in order to not make a drastic chain reaction.

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The people had many ideas on treatments of this horrible disease, smallpox.  The people believed bloodletting, leeches, fasting, laxatives, purgatives, diuretics, heat/sweat therapy, or cold therapy would all help with ridding a person of the disease.  The bloodletting and leeches would get rid of blood that was contaminated, so the body could make healthy blood. The fasting, laxatives, purgatives, and diuretics to rid the body of waste. As were the heat/sweat therapy and cold therapy to expel the germs by burning them or freezing them. the people also believed in praying to Gods of smallpox and performing ceremonies to not get or get the disease. Then came red therapy which people believed being surrounded by the color red from the walls, blankets, red light, etc will draw out the illness to the color as the pox were. The 18^th century rolled around and began to fight the disease with inoculation/variolation and insufflation. The Chinese used nasal insufflation which included putting the scabs of smallpox into the nose to expose them to the disease. Variolation/inoculation were put into use when they would scrap the pus onto the skin of an uninfected person so they would build the immunity against the disease.

Jenner created the vaccination in 1796 after he heard all these stories of milkmaids being immune to smallpox since they had gotten cowpox.  He tried out this theory and it worked. He published his findings and the people began to use his vaccine.  The pro of this vaccine was that less people would know die from smallpox, it was becoming mandatory (herd immunity) however, the con was people protested this and bacterial contamination. The public health began to vaccinate all the people that were willing to take it.  The world began to start the eradication of smallpox using surveillance and containment.  It was a global effort with international reporting and reference labs to monitor the vaccine quality. They found it to be more effective to find a case and contain it to an area and vaccinate anyone in contact with that person. This was so it wouldn’t spread as there is no animal that carries the disease to transfer it to humans.  Therefore, if you eliminate all the cases the disease will be eradicated. Smallpox was finally eradicated with all the effort given in 1980. Smallpox vaccines ended in the US in the 1970’s and in 1990 they stopped giving the vaccine to military recruits. However, in 2002 bioterrorism became a threat and the smallpox vaccine began to be distributed in military personnel.  The vaccine is vaccinia not smallpox and in case of emergency the US government has enough vaccine of smallpox to vaccinate every single person in the US.

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Many ethical issues pop up when dealing with infectious diseases.  The Tuskegee Syphilis Study brought up many of these ethical issues. The patients were enrolled in the study without their informed consent.  This was a huge issue because the patients didn’t know the risks of what was being done to them.  they may have felt pressured to say yes to the experiment or they just didn’t have enough education as the people came from a deprived socioecological environment.  In the town they picked doctors were seen as authoritative figures and well respected.  The people listened and did as the doctors saw best. They were denied from the actual treatment of the disease. This means they overlooked the welfare of the people, they didn’t care if they lived or died they just wanted their research done and to get results.  The patients were never given the option to take the treatment once it was discovered, they were prevented from it.  Another issue was the state ignored the fact that the patient’s wives probably had syphilis too and let them go untreated.  As well as they never kept accurate records of who died from syphilis and who lived.  They left the entire community in jeopardy by not treating the disease.  The morality of this experiment was never questioned even though it was published for 40 years.  No one stood up to say it was wrong or no one thought it was wrong because doctors were saying it was alright.  This Tuskegee Study was unethical, yet the doctors rationalized what they were doing.  The doctors rationalized that they were discovering what the disease naturally does when it goes without treatment.  The study also only came to an end when brought to light as the public disagreed with the morals of the study and the patients never filed a case against the study yet they were compensated to some degree.  The doctors also believed that it was good they found negative results as in the disease didn’t differ between whites and blacks.  The none results helped them to rationalize that it was a good experiment.

The potential consequences of unethical studies performed on a specific group ie African Americans in this case has affected their willingness to participate in medical studies and on trusting of medical professions.  People are still willing to participate in medical studies as they believe it will help the common good. However, the people now do not have a health seeking culture unless they are very ill.  They also do not want the doctors to be in their business as afraid they may be reported to law enforcement for some illegal activities.  The people distrust the government medicine as they allowed for an unethical experiment to last 40 years with many of the patients dying. This mistrust has led to people not going to doctors which is causing earlier mortality.  The consequences of this mistrust and unethical and rationalization of the Tuskegee Study has caused major impact on the way people now view medical professions.  People now question if the doctors are doing what’s best for them.  The ethics of infectious diseases has drastically changed due to this case study.

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Plague has been around for a long time and continues to be a human issue. The plague came in 3 waves over society by the Justinian plague, the black death, and the modern plague.  The plague was spread through humans incidentally as the plague was carried by fleas and would be hosted on rats. However, when the rats died the fleas needed a new host and found the human.  The societal factors that may have contributed was close living to each other, living with animals, and not disposing of waste properly.  Some factors that may have enhanced the virulence of the epidemic are the temperature changes drastically therefore destroying crops causing hunger and starvation.  Also, the people lived so close together they were breathing down each other’s necks causing spread of bacteria easy.

The societal response to the deadly epidemic was to find someone to blame or a reason for why this was happening as well as fear.  The people at first believed the plague could be due to the alignment of the planets as they had aligned in a strange pattern.  Another theory was that a vapor came over and poisoned everyone.  A popular theory was that it was a curse from God for the sins they had committed such as gambling, prostitution, and accepting Jews into their communities. All of the people feared for their lives as they watched death keep taking lives of the people they held close to them.  The people attempted to decrease the severity of the epidemic by quarantining places and putting people in isolation.  They would get rid of the diseased bodies by burial or fire.  Some people would even just flee to places that were secluded so they had less chance of contracting the plague.

The overall effects on society were drastic. The people blamed the Jews for the plague so they began to kill them all off.  The people made them confess from torture that they were spreading the disease and them they beat or burned them alive to rid them.  The church began to lose control and support of the people as people began to take religion into their own hands.  People began to recreate Christ’s path of suffering by whipping themselves as they believed inflicted pain would make God save them from the plague. Medicine was not very advanced, but the doctor did come up with some remedies that may have helped to reduce symptoms.  The social order changed drastically as there weren’t enough people to hold up the higher classes estates and fields, the high class people had to do their own work.  Also, the people that once could not afford land since there was over population was no longer an issue with the mass population loss.  The previous poor people who worked on the estates now had their own land.  All this land with low people meant new crops could be grown which led to an excess of food and more nutrition.  This led to a healthier society which means less likely to contract disease.

How the plague is contracted in the US is from bites of infected fleas, touching infected animals like cats, dogs, rats, rabbits, etc and inhaling droplets from the cough of an infected animal/person. There are many protocols people can use to prevent plague.  To protect yourself and family you can eliminate nesting area for rodents around your home as well as avoiding touching dead animals.  Another way is to wear gloves if handling sick animal, report sick animals to local health departments, do not let pets sleep with you, and to use insect repellent containing DEET. To protect your pets treat them for fleas often, keep food safe tight, take sick pets to vet immediately, and do not allow them to hunt/play with small rodents. Madagascar’s social and cultural factors are involved in the plague’s resurgence here after 2009.  It generally erupts in the rainy season.  Some of these factors are the local customs and a broken health care system. The culture has the people bathe the body and return it to the person’s birthplace, but this spreads the disease. Also, the health care workers have such a responsibility to find everyone in contact with a diseased person which is hard to track down as this disease is very transmissible.  This is the plague of yesterday and today and the effects it has caused and will continue to cause.

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The appearance of plagues was contributed to many cultural and societal factors.  Plagues were not yet spread widely due to the hunter and gatherer life style.  As their living style was traveling often, having few children, they are not surrounded by rotting meat or feces, and the population was small enough for no human to human transmission.  They would obtain parasites and fleas, but seldom illnesses that affect the whole group.  As time went forward with the population beginning to boon the people started to domesticate animals and initiate agriculture.  Now with humans and animals living together, the living area became filthy from feces and garbage as well as these two sharing the same water source.  These things attracted insect vectors of disease as well as birds and rodents carrying their own pathogens.  Plagues rose in human history when animals became involved.  Some of these diseases include small pox, influenza, TB, and malaria.  Humans also began to deforest causing animals homes to be destroyed and introducing these bugs hidden in the forest away from society into society.

The effects of current technology has made a great impact on the world.  The sanitation and hygiene improved with cleaning self and not being around waste disposal.  Health departments were created and helped to provide clean water with chlorination. The people started pest and animal control with vaccination against rabies.  Also, improved the TB rate by reducing bad housing conditions and started to control malaria with mosquito control programs.  Plague control led to quarantines, inspections, rodent and vector operations, and vaccines for everyone including the poor. Finally, we developed antibiotics with a wide range of targets and fewer side effects to fight disease.  Technology that was created to help improve were computers to enhance ability to gather and analyze data, serologic testing to diagnose and control disease, viral isolation and tissue culture to show infected material, and molecular techniques which detect infectious pathogens.

Humans have affected the globalization, climate change and human health of the world with all of their improvements in technology and changing the earth’s environment.  Due to humans change in life style we have enabled these diseases and pathogens easier access into our bodies.  This is how plagues have made such a huge appearance into society today and the technologies we’ve come up with to help improve our life quality with the diseases present from the creation of services like the cdc and who.

HR: notes, class powerpoints, reference pages globalization, climate change, and human health And public health achievements