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| 1855 |
In Cuba there are no
people of Amerindian descent. Could the Columbine Exchange be responsible for
this? A pandemic is the worst case scenario for an infectious disease. A disease
officially becomes a pandemic when it has spread beyond a country’s borders. The image
shown here is of from the 1855 pandemic and is of interest as for the first
time ever images of a pandemic were photographed.
Presented here is a journey along the path the major
outbreaks of diseases in the world traversed from antiquity. History only
became an academic discipline in mid 19th century Germany. Also the
Gregorian calendar we currently use was introduced in 1582. However, major plagues
have shaped the course of humanity in numerous ways. The focus here is not on
statistics and gruesome details:
430
B.C.: The Plague at Athens, mainly in the area of Greece,
the Mediterranean, Africa, Egypt, and Persia. It started during the
Peloponnesian war. DNA collected from
teeth in an ancient burial pit points to typhoid fever as being the cause and the
disease was transmitted via contaminated food and water.
165 A.D.: The Antonine Plague, or the Plague of Galen. There were two outbreaks in about 100
years. Affected was the Mediterranean area and most likely the disease came through the Silk Road. This plague
could have caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
250-270 A.D.: The Cyprian Plague which affected Ethiopia, Syria,
Northern Africa, and Europe. One of the significant events of this time
was that fields were abandoned, farmers died and agricultural production
collapsed.
541-542 A.D.: Justinian Plague. Outbreaks continued for 225 years. Affected were Constantinople, Egypt,
Palestine, and the Mediterranean. It was transmitted by the black rat.
Also affected were India, China,
and Africa. DNA analysis shows
it was a bubonic plague – yersinia
pestis. One of the effects of this plague was to weaken the Byzantine Empire,
and this allowed the Arabs to encroach.
11th Century: Leprosy, Europe. This
outbreak was such that in 1200 A.D. an estimated 19,000 leprosy hospitals
existed all over Europe. The most ancient evidence of leprosy came from a 4,000
year old human skeleton in India. Genetical analysis shows the disease evolved
over 100,000 years ago in Eastern Africa or Southwestern Asia.
1350 A.D.: The Black Death: Eurasia, Europe and Africa. This is the most devastating
pandemic recorded in human history. It is estimated to have killed 30 t0 60% of
Europe’s population and created religious, social and economic upheavals.
1492 A.D.: The Columbian Exchange: Brought
by Columbus to Caribbean and Americas.
The natives carried none of the acute infectious diseases that that affected
Eurasia and Africa. Among these diseases, malaria and yellow fever destroyed
almost all the population of the Caribbean and the Americas. In return syphilis
most likely spread from the Americas to the Europe.
1665 A.D.: The Great Plague of London: In January, an outbreak erupted in St
Giles-in-the-Field, then a small impoverished village west of London. Unsanitary
conditions were attributed to this plague.
1817 A.D.: First
Cholera Pandemic: This is the first of seven
cholera pandemics over the next 150 years. Affected were Russia, India,
Britain, Spain, Africa, Indonesia, China, Japan, Italy, Germany and America. British
soldiers in India were among the dead. The rapidity and virulence with which
the disease struck, took everyone by surprise.
1855 A.D.: The Third
Plague Pandemic. This plague ravaged the globe. It reached
all continents. Hong Kong was able to isolate the bacillus that caused it. This
pandemic was the first to be photographed and left an extraordinary legacy of
visual material.
1875 A.D.: The Fiji
Measles Pandemic was spread by the British. Fiji, in the South Pacific is
comprised of 850 islands but only about 100 are inhabited. At
this time, Europeans were expanding trade
throughout the pacific islands, including Fiji. King Cakobau and some other
Fijian chiefs signed the Deed of Cession which handed the Fiji islands to
Great Britain. The king sailed to Sydney, Australia in December
of 1874 and returned January of 1875. Some of the men on
his ship still had contagious cases of measles which started the epidemic.
1889 A.D.: The Russian
Flu: Affected were Siberia, Kazakhstan, Moscow, Finland, the rest of
Europe, North America and Africa. At that time,
trains and ships alone sped the transmission of the flu so that it reached the
U.S. 70 days after the virus' first peak in St. Petersburg and circled the
globe in just a few months.
1918 A.D.: The
Spanish Flu, now called the 1918 Flu pandemic: It decimated Europe, the United
States and parts of Asia. Also called La Pesadilla, it was an
unusually deadly influenza pandemic. Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected
about a quarter of the world's population at the time. The virus that caused the swine flu and H1N1 are sub types of this virus.
1957 A.D.: The Asian
flu: Affected Hong Kong, Singapore, India, UK, US, China, United States and
England The strain of virus that caused the
pandemic, was a recombination of avian influenza (probably from
geese) and human influenza viruses. As it was a novel strain of the virus,
there was minimal immunity in the population. A vaccine was available from
October in the UK, although it was only available initially in limited
quantities, its rapid deployment helped contain the pandemic. The flu continued
to circulate until 1968, when it transformed into a sub type and caused the 1968 influenza pandemic.
1981 A.D.: HIV/AIDS:
Initially Africa, Haiti, United States.
It is widely believed that HIV originated
in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920 when HIV crossed
species from chimpanzees to humans. Available data suggests that the current
epidemic started in the mid- to late 1970s. By 1980, HIV may have already
spread to North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australia. By 2017 for
the first time ever, more than half of the global population living with HIV
are receiving an antiretroviral treatment. There is robust scientific evidence
that people who have adhered to treatment and achieved an undetectable viral
load cannot pass the virus on.
2003 A.D.: SARS:
Global. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) was first discovered in Asia in February 2003. The outbreak lasted
approximately six months as the disease spread to more than two dozen countries
in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia before it was stopped in July
2003. A SARS-like virus has been isolated from
civets (captured in areas of China where the SARS outbreak originated). CDC
banned the importation of civets. The ban is currently still in effect.
