[ad_1]
The first case of coronavirus infection was recorded exactly a year ago on November 17 in Wuhan, according to unpublished Chinese government data obtained by the South China Morning Post..
After a year, nearly 55 million people have been infected around the world so far and about 1.31 million have died. 34.2 million people have recovered, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Over the course of human history, nothing has killed as many people as viruses, bacteria, and disease-causing parasites. Not even natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanoes.
Not even a war, not even close.
“The history of medicine has seen many epidemics, and as the population increases, most are becoming pandemics,” Vladimir Jovakovic, a medical historian, told the BBC in Serbian.
“The biggest problem is that viruses are invisible – microbes are ghosts to humans and to us doctors who look after them – microbes are titans older than humans.”
Perhaps the history of previous pandemics could tell us if kovid-19 will wait another year.
See: How to protect yourself
Mass murderers
Microbes are older than us.
“From China, Egypt and Mesopotamia, viruses have ravaged the world,” says Jokanovic.
“The difference was that at the time they were not known to be viruses, because the microscope under which viruses can be seen was only discovered in the 20th century.”
Over the millennia, epidemics in particular have acted as mass killers, on a scale we can’t even understand today, even in the days of the coronavirus.
According to Jokanović, pandemics expanded significantly in the Middle Ages as the number of inhabitants increased.
The Plague of Justinian it appeared in the 6th century and killed up to 50 million people, perhaps half of the world’s population at that time.
A 14th-century black death, probably caused by the pathogen itself, killed an estimated 200 million people.
As an example of other pandemics, epidemiologist Zoran Radovanović also gives a pandemic cholera since the early 1960s in Southeast Asia, which says “metastases are still being felt”.
HIV, a pandemic that continues to haunt us and for which there is no vaccine yet, has killed an estimated 32 million people, while 75 million have been infected, and that number is growing every day.
“There is also the HIV epidemic, which was recognized in 1981 and is now slowly stabilizing even without the vaccine,” Radovanovic added.
There is also malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes.
Viruses in the Balkans
Among the important pandemics for the population of the Balkans, Jokanović identifies the plague from which up to 50 percent of the population has died in some countries.
It has plagued humanity for thousands of years, and although the death toll has dropped significantly over the past 20 years, it still takes nearly half a million people a year.
“Jovan Apostolović, the first Serbian doctor to complete his studies in Germany, wrote about the latest plague epidemic in Serbia,” says the medical historian.
“He lived in Novi Sad and didn’t have a job. When the plague hit, he was given the job of fighting it.”
The disease, adds Jokanović, “has afflicted Srem, and 80 percent of the population has contracted the plague in Irig”.
“Thanks to Jokanović, the infection bypassed Bačka because Jokanović quarantined the cities,” he says.
There is also tuberculosis, which, adds the medical historian, claimed 300,000 lives in the Balkans.
Dee killed up to 300 million people, although the effective vaccine – the world’s first – has been available since 1796.
Between 50 and 100 million people died in 1918 pneumonia pandemics – the number of casualties exceeded the number of deaths in the First World War, which lasted at that time.
In 1918, one in three people on the planet was infected with the flu virus.
“The closest pandemic to the one that exists is the Spanish fever pandemic after World War I,” epidemiologist Zoran Radovanovic told the BBC in Serbian.
“Of course, many more people died then – at least 50 million, but people died because there were no antibiotics and there was a great famine, but even then the whole world was affected and the whole world economy has suffered “.
Not a pandemic but an endemic
The culture of mass communications and the modern way of life, with numerous travels, go hand in hand with viruses, says Jokanović.
However, Radovanovic believes the corona virus will reach endemic level.
“Just as the Spanish flu has become endemic, so I believe the corona virus will,” he added.
“Endemic means that the disease has remained among people, but that it is much easier to control.”
As a prognosis until the endemic level is reached, the epidemiologist gives – the spring of 2022.
This means that the corona virus could live in this form and danger among people for the next two years.
Look: don’t go to these places, they are risky
If you have breathing problems, call 19819 or one of the phone numbers recommended by the Ministry of Health on the Kovid19 website.
Follow us on Facebook I Twitter. If you have a suggested topic for us, please contact us [email protected]
[ad_2]
Source link
