History Of Pandemics In The World

                 
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Around the year 9000 BC, humans gradually evolved from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a relatively more sedentary one. In Mesopotamia, initially, human begins to develop agriculture and livestock. This new proximity between animals and man facilitates the transmission of diseases to the latter, food production increases, communities, villages and cities grow, trade routes appear, and the first wars take place. All this contributes to the spread of new contagious diseases. Although there aren’t enough historical traces or documentation, but the first epidemics probably take place at this time and perhaps even the first pandemics, i.e. the spread of an epidemic among different people over large geographical areas. Some religious texts and Egyptian papyri recount the first outbreaks-

1) Ancient Greece And The Roman Empire

The development of writing allows a Greek historian to document a pandemic around 430 BC known as the Plague of Athens, it is a disease that remains unidentified to those day. According to the story and thus the Greek point of view the illness emerges in Ethiopia spreads in Egypt, Libya, and then throughout the Mediterranean basin. Athens was at war with Sparta and its allies and because of densely populated and in poor hygienic conditions, the Plague of Athens worsens and kills 25-30% of the population, which facilitated Spartans victory.

Around the year 165, when the Mediterranean basin was dominated by the Roman Empire, the Antonine Plague appeared, which was probably a smallpox pandemic. It started in Mesopotamia and spread rapidly to westwards following military travel patterns, the disease killed 5 million people out of the then global population of 200 to 250 million people. The Roman Empire was hit hard and other epidemics further weakened it over the following centuries, probably influencing the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

2) Plague Of Justinian

In 541 begins the first known pandemic of Bubonic Plague, linked to a bacteria infecting small mammals mainly rats, and their fleas, In some cases, the rat fleas bite humans and transmit bacteria to them. Once the infection reaches the lungs, it became highly contagious between humans according to recent studies the Plague of Justinian started from Central Asia and spread via land and sea trade routes to the Byzantine Empire, the capital Constantinople was badly affected as it lied on a commercial crossroad, the disease spreads throughout the Mediterranean basin. Byzantine military troops engaged in the West were contaminated, which halted the expansion of the empire. In Rome, Pope Pelagius II succumbed to the disease and in Mesopotamia, the Byzantine and Sasanian empires were already severely affected by the pandemic, lost steam in war. This benefited the Arabs who started their Muslim conquests, The Sasanian Empire collapsed while the Byzantine Empire was greatly reduced. The Plague of Justinian claimed between 30 and 100 million victims over two centuries. 

3) Leprosy

Leprosy was a bacterial disease mentioned in texts dating back to Antiquity, probably native to East Africa according to recent studies, it spread through Egypt to Asia and Europe following trade routes. As Europe’s population got denser it was likely that crusades to Jerusalem accelerated the spread of leprosy on the continent. Bad hygiene, lack of sewers and poorly ventilated homes fostered transmission of this disease which was otherwise not very contagious. The poor were the worst affected, exclusion measures were taken against the sick. Lepers were considered already dead by the Catholic religion they are isolated in leper colonies which could be anything from a simple hut on the edge of a village or leprosaria - sickroom facilities - in cities. Lepers ended their lives in such confinements completely isolated from the outside world. 

4) The Black Death

The Black Death is considered as the second pandemic of bubonic plague, It originated from the steppes of Central Asia, and spread across the continent. On the shores of the Black Sea warriors of the Golden Horde besiege the Genoese city of Caffa weakened by the plague, they catapult their dead into the city to spread the disease. Rats also likely further contaminated the city, after the siege fails Genoese sailors resumed trade across Europe spreading the plague in port cities. The disease then spreads inland and only regions of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary were spared. The plague manifested strongly in densely populated areas and disproportionately affected the poor, the malnourished and those living in unsanitary conditions. Doctors were overwhelmed, In a few years the disease killed 200 million people worldwide, a little less than half the European population and the continent took two centuries to recover its pre-pandemic demography. The Black Death was am endemic which locally resurfaced several times over the following centuries. Preventive measures were taken, especially in Venice where ships had to wait 40 days before being able to enter the port, these were the first quarantines -- (quaranta being the Italian word for the number 40). 

5) The Columbian Exchange

In Europe the construction of new more efficient vessels allowed the Spanish and Portuguese to broaden exploration, with Christopher Columbus landing in America, and Vasco da Gama opening a sea route to India through the African coasts, exchanges rapidly increased between people previously isolated from each other and with different immunity systems. People from the Old World import along with them a dozen diseases still unknown in the New World, like Smallpox proved particularly devastating for Native Americans. Epidemics decimated entire populations even before the arrival of European settlers Conversely, a form of virulent syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection which was imported from America to Europe. Furthermore, tropical diseases such as yellow fever and malaria, caused by parasites spread around the world via carrier mosquitoes those who accompanied sailing ships. Meanwhile, medicine continues to evolve in the face of multiple disease outbreaks, In 1768 an English apothecary named John Fewster finds that people infected with cowpox(a disease dangerous to bovines but not humans) are protected from the smallpox virus so a few years later, the cowpox vaccine was injected into the population to counter smallpox, resulting in the first form of vaccine. The treatment evolved and the smallpox disease was been eradicated over two centuries.

6) Cholera And Plague

Cholera is a bacterial infection that only affects the human species through the ingestion of contaminated food or water. The disease causes severe diarrhea resulting in life-threatening dehydration and without treatment, half of those infected die within a few hours or days. The disease spreads more rapidly in densely populated areas with poor hygienic conditions, The first cholera pandemic begins in 1817 in the vicinity of Bengal and spread in Asia, Africa and to the gates of Europe. 

In 1855, in the west of Yunnan, China, begins the third and last pandemic of bubonic plague. It spreads slowly to the port city of Hong Kong from where in a few years it spreads from ships in ports to the whole world but this time, French biologists and doctors discovered the bacteria responsible for the disease and how rat fleas propagate it.  A serum was created and rat extermination measures were taken on vessels which limited numbers, mainly in developed countries. British India was still badly affected by around 10 million deaths, while China had 2 million victims.

7) Influenza

Influenza was an infectious disease that is difficult to control because it is caused by four different strains of viruses that can quickly mutate and generate new epidemics. The first major flu pandemic, called the Russian flu raged in 1889-1890 from the Eurasian steppes to the European and American continents. But it’s the second major influenza outbreak, known as the Spanish flu, which proved to be the most devastating flu pandemic, Its origins are still unknown as it appeared during World War I.
In the United States, the virus mutated and became virulent, Transported with soldiers to Europe, the disease spread through the globe as soon as World War I ended. One-third of the world's population was infected, and about 50 million people died from it. There were 2 further flu pandemics causing approximately 1 million deaths each: the so-called Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong pandemic in 1968. 

8) HIV

Originally from central Africa, the AIDS virus spreads from chimpanzees to human due to hunting. The virus slowly reached Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo from where it spreads across river routes and railways all around the country and then across the continent. In 1964, the return of contaminated Haitian workers takes the disease to North America, especially in the United States from 1970. In 1983, in Paris, the Pasteur Institute identified the HIV virus that caused AIDS, the disease that weakens the immune system and therefore facilitates the development of other infections, AIDS then infected people worldwide to qualify as a pandemic in 2005. Prevention, treatment and contraceptives help curb the disease but still resulted in about 30 million victims in 30 years, Today some 40 million people live with HIV. 

9) Sars Cov-2

At the end of 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is probably transmitted from animals to humans and was first observed in Wuhan, China. With high levels of globalization, the new disease COVID-19 spread rapidly around the world and On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared it as a pandemic. 

Furthermore, despite major advancement in medicine, other diseases still claim many victims. Plague is still rampant and reappears regularly, the last epidemic in 2017 hitting Madagascar and Seychelles. A seventh cholera pandemic has been underway since 1961 and still causes 100,000 global victims each year, according to WHO, there are under 3 million leprosy patients worldwide, while seasonal flu kills about 500,000 people annually, Malaria claims as many victims each year the vast majority being young children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Poor and remote populations remain the main victims of these epidemics and pandemics.

Abhishek Rawat
ContentWriter
@DayLightMedia