When it comes to cultural/societal factors that contributed to the appearances of certain plagues in history, several human/societal errors come to light. The first would be that there was no sort of knowledge of simple hygiene, nor the knowledge of how dangerous it was to live with or beside animals. A great example of this dilemma would be the Black Death. People receiving this harsh and unforgiving disease from flies that found their host (rats, horses, cows, etc.) that lived particularly close to humans. That would be the cause of one of the deadliest plagues in history. 

In today’s time the public is more aware of plagues and can do a lot to prevent them. We now have public health departments that can warn the public of any infectious disease that can be lurking in the present time as well as ways to prevent getting the disease. They also look and make sure that the public water supply is not dangerous for the public. In all the health departments make their best efforts to inform the public of ways to stay safe and stay clear from infectious diseases.  Also, in today’s time a preventable measure to take to help reduce your chances of catching a disease is vaccines. That is just a small example of the modern ways of preventing infectious diseases. Advances in new technology is enhancing ways to find and cure more infectious diseases. An example is Ebola, a disease that we have never seen before but with an outbreak in Africa, we had a cure for it within 3 days. That’s the benefit of new technologies for fighting infectious diseases. One of the best challenges to come is staying up to date in infectious diseases and having the technology to discover new diseases that we do not have the cure for and make sure we can have a cure for them.