30230YuNoHa12HD A modern Metropolis such as Tokyo

Q
OR KINSHASA OFFERS PATHOGENS FAR RICHER HUNTING GROUNDS
THAN MEDIEVAL FLORENCE OR 1520 TENOCHTITLAN, & the global transport network
is today even more efficient than in 1918! A Spanish virus can make its way to Congo or Tahiti
in less than 24 hours! We should therefore have expected to live in a epidemiological hell, with one
deadly plague after another? However, both the incidence and impact of epidemics have gone down dramatically
in the last few decades! In particular, global child mortality is at an all-time low: less than 5% of children die before
reaching adulthood? In the developed world the rate is less than 1%! This miracle is due to the unprecedented achievements
of 20th-century medicine, which has provided us with vaccinations, antibiotics, improved hygiene & a much better medical infrastructure. For example, a global campaign of smallpox vaccination was so successful that in 1979 the World Health
Organization declared that humanity had won, & that smallpox had been completely eradicated? It was the first epidemic
humans had ever managed to wipe off the face of the earth! In 1967 smallpox had still infected 15 million people & killed two million
of them, but in 2014 not a single person was either infected or killed by smallpox. The victory has been so complete that today the WHO has stopped vaccinating humans against smallpox? Every few years we are alarmed by the outbreak of some potential new plague,
such as SARS in 2002/3, bird flu in 2005, swine flu in 2009/10 & Ebola in 2014! Yet thanks to efficient counter-measures these
incidents have so far resulted in a comparatively small number of victims! SARS, for example, initially raised fears of a new
Black Death, but eventually ended with the death of less than 1,000 people worldwide!! The Ebola outbreak in West Africa
seemed at first to spiral out of control, & on 26 September 2015 the WHO described it as 'the most severe public health
emergency seen in modern times' ...... Nevertheless, by early 2015 the epidemic had been reined in, &
in January 2016 the WHO declared it óver! It infected 30,000 people {killing 11,000 of them}, caused
massive economic damage throughout West Africa, ànd sent shockwaves of anxiety across the world; but it did not spread beyond West Africa, and it's death toll was nowhere near the scale of the Spanish Flu or the
Mexican smallpox epidemic.
20 dec 2017 - bewerkt op 22 dec 2017 - meld ongepast verhaal
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