CoronaVirus: A JOURNEY FROM EPIDEMIC TO PANDEMIC

In the previous blog we have learned about CoronaVirus- infection, mechanism, effects, preventive measures and raised a question. Well answer to that question has changed completely.

WHY it is called as CoronaVirus ?

Not being judgmental but sometimes looks defines name, same is the case with coronavirus-  It has a core of genetic material covered by an envelope with protein spikes that resemble a crown. In Latin, a crown is a "corona". It’s called a novel coronavirus because it’s new and hasn’t been detected in people before.

CoronaVirus: A JOURNEY FROM EPIDEMIC TO PANDEMIC

We have traveled half of it's journey in the previous blog, let's travel the other half.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a Pandemic, pointing to the over 118,000 cases of the coronavirus illness in over 110 countries and territories around the world and the sustained risk of further global spread. Now the data have changed a bit, you can see the crystal clear change in the below picture.

This picture is taken from official site of WHO showing total number of confirmed cases, deaths and number of effected countries of COVID-19. On top right corner you can see number of  COVID-19 cases in different countries. Information till date- 15 march 2020.

Let's jump to our main topic and discuss Pandemic in depth.
But before discussing it, you must get families with some similar terms.

WHAT is Epidemic?

A sudden widespread of an infectious disease in  a community at a particular time.

WHAT is Endemic?

A constant presence of a disease or infection within a geographic area. (Hyper-endemic, is a situation in which there are persistent, high levels of disease occurrence)

WHAT is Sporadic?

When a disease occurs infrequently and irregularly. 

WHAT is Pandemic?

A pandemic is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide.

Phases of Pandemics:

The World Health Organization (WHO) provides an influenza pandemic alert system, with a scale ranging from Phase 1 (a low risk of a flu pandemic) to Phase 6 (a full-blown pandemic):

Phase 1: A virus in animals has caused no known infections in humans.

Phase 2: An animal flu virus has caused infection in humans.

Phase 3: Sporadic cases or small clusters of disease occur in humans. Human-to-human transmission, if any, is insufficient to cause community-level outbreaks.

Phase 4: The risk for a pandemic is greatly increased but not certain.

Phase 5: Spread of disease between humans is occurring in more than one country of one WHO region.

Phase 6: Community-level outbreaks are in at least one additional country in a different WHO region from phase 5. A global pandemic is under way.

The last time a pandemic was declared.

The last pandemic reported was the 2009 H1N1flu pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands globally. Unless it is influenza, WHO generally avoids declaring diseases as pandemics. This change came about after the lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 experience. According to 2017 pandemic influenza risk management guidelines, the WHO uses pandemic influenza phases — interpandemic, alert, pandemic and transition — to “reflect its risk assessment of the global situation regarding each influenza virus with pandemic potential infecting humans”.

Throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. The only current pandemic is HIV/AIDS, which started in the 1980s. Other recent pandemics are the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu) and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1).

Some of the Biggest Pandemics: 

There have been a number of significant epidemics and pandemics recorded in human history, generally zoonosis which came about with the domestication of animals, such as influenza and tuberculosis. Some of the biggest pandemics are:

1- Plague of Athens, from 430 to 426 BC. 

During the Peloponnese War, typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops, and a quarter of the population over four years. This disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread; i.e. it killed off its hosts at a rate faster than they could spread it. The exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years

2- Antonine Plague, from 165 to 180 AD. 

Possibly smallpox brought to the Italian peninsula by soldiers returning from the Near East; it killed a quarter of those infected, and up to five million in all.

3- Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750. 

The first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague. It started in Egypt, and reached Constantinople the following spring, killing (according to the Byzantine chronicler Procopius) 10,000 a day at its height, and perhaps 40% of the city’s inhabitants.

4- Black Death, from 1331 to 1353. 

The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 million people. Eight hundred years after the last outbreak, the plague returned to Europe. Starting in Asia, the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe in 1348 and killed an estimated 20 to 30 million Europeans in six years; a third of the total population, and up to a half in the worst-affected urban areas. It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the 18th century.

5- Spanish flu, from 1918 to 1920. 

It infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million people. Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu had an unusually high mortality rate for young adults. Spanish flu killed more people than World War I did and it killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS did in its first 25 years. Mass troop movements and close quarters during World War I caused it to spread and mutate faster; the susceptibility of soldiers to Spanish flu might have been increased due to stress, undernourishment and chemical attacks. Improved transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease 

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DISCLAIMER- The content in this blog is for information purpose only, I have tried to give brief and quality information regarding the topic, COVID-19 is new to all of us so research is still going  on and numerical data of no. of infected people is keep on changing.

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