Ebola: History's latest plague upon our houses
First, let us consider plague, a word often used loosely. By definition, it is “a disastrous evil or affliction,” according to Webster’s Dictionary. It is also “an epidemic disease causing a high rate of mortality.”
But the Bantam Medical Dictionary tells us it is an “acute epidemic disease of rats and other wild rodents” caused by a specific bacteria and transmitted by rat fleas. So when medical types think of plague, they think of rat fleas.
An epidemic affects many individuals within a population, community or region at the same time, the dictionary tells us. A pandemic occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a high proportion of the population (rat fleas optional).
Now, here's another part of the puzzle: Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals or people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It has left victims dead in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
So this is the answer: Ebola is an epidemic that could become a pandemic.
As far as we’re concerned, it may as well be a plague. It sounds awful. Victims fall ill with “sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat,” WHO reports. “This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.”
While dreadful enough, Ebola is only the most recent illness of terrifying proportions. Throughout the centuries, mankind has come to grips with malaria, cholera, smallpox, typhus and AIDS. Before modern medicine, various ailments could mercilessly wipe out towns, countries and even the better part of continents. Here are a few examples:
The Justinian Plague: 100 million dead.
The plague began in 541 A.D., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Named for Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, the plague affected much of the Mediterranean basin.The Justinian Plague and the Black Death (see below) were brought about by different strains of the same microbe, according to research published in Lancet Infectious Diseasesin January. Because the strains still exist, so too is the potential for another pandemic.
The Great Plague, also known as Black Death: At least 100 million dead during a 200-year period.
This bubonic plague originated in Asia and spread along trade routes. (In a bubonic plague, “formation of buboes is a prominent feature,” the dictionary tells us. Victims suffer an inflammatory swelling of the lymph gland, especially in the groin.) Carried by fleas on rats, the plague struck Western Europe in 1347. Historians estimate that the plague wiped out one-third of the population of Europe.
The Great Pandemic, 1918-1919: An estimated 30 million to 50 million dead globally, among them, 675,000 Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
By comparison, an estimated 16 million died during World War 1. This flu hit its victims like a locomotive. Some felt fine in the morning and were dead by nightfall, an HHS report recounted. Many died not from the flu but from complications, such as pneumonia. Entire families became ill. Postal deliverymen wore masks.Epidemiologists have different theories about its origin. Some believe the first cases developed in Asia. Another hypothesis places the first case at a British Army post in France.
More recently, theories have focused not on Europe or Asia but on Haskell County, Kansas. Soldiers from the U.S. may have transported the illness across the globe, according to a report in the Journal of Translational Medicine.
HIV/AIDS: 25 million estimated dead worldwide.
The first case was reported in June 1981, when the CDC published a report “describing cases of a rare lung infection … in five young, previously healthy, gay men in Los Angeles,” according to HHS.News organizations covered the story. As health officials grew to understand the extent of the crisis, research began, a hotline was established and procedures were developed for testing blood.
Currently, 33.5 million globally are living with AIDS, and 97 percent of them live in low and middle-income countries, according to HHS.
Ebola: 1,427 people dead in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, according to WHO.
The infection can be controlled through the use of protective measures – hence the photos of doctors and nurses encased in masks and smocks. Various pharmaceutical companies are rushing to produce an effective treatment.
Related:
5 things to know about the Ebola virus
