EVERY 100 YEARS PANDEMIC!

By M. Birundha, IV year M.B.B.S., JSS Medical College, Mysore

Recently Coronavirus has an outburst in this world, till now more than two crore people were affected and more than seven lakhs people have died due to this virus. This is not the first time that the world is facing this pandemic situation. Like the coronavirus, many viruses were outburst in this world and played football in many people's lives. Every 100 years this world is facing a pandemic situation, Plague in 1720-1723, Cholera in 1817-1824, Spanish flu in 1918-1920 and Coronavirus in 2019-present.

Plague

On 25th May 1720, a ship named ‘Grand Saint-Antoine arrived in the port of Marseille, France, laden with cotton, silks and other goods. But it also carried an invisible cargo, the bacterium known as ‘Yersinia Pestis’, launched the Great Plague of Provence. The disease spread throughout Southeastern France and killed a total of 1,26,000 people. It was estimated that nearly 30% of the population of Marseille, a city in France, had perished due to this disease. But this disease didn’t spread over the world.

Cholera

Every year 1.3 to 4 million people were infected by Cholera and 21,000 to 1,43,000 people have perished due to Cholera. This disease was caused by a bacterium named ‘Vibrio Cholerae’. In 1817, the first Cholera pandemic emerged out of the Ganges Delta with an outbreak in Jessore, India and quickly spread over India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. In 1820 this disease spread to Thailand, Indonesia, China and Japan. In 1821, it spread to Turkey, Syria and Southern Russia. The total death rate of this pandemic was unknown. It was estimated that 30,000 people have died in Bangkok, 1,225 people have died in Java, and in India, it was held that one to two million people have perished due to this disease.

Spanish flu

The Spanish flu pandemic was the most severe in world history. It was caused by the ‘H1N1 virus’. It was first identified in military personnel in 1918. As the USA had entered World War 1, the disease spread quickly among the American troops and it quickly spread over France, Britain, Italy and Spain. The death rate of this pandemic is unknown. It was estimated that the death rate is between 17 million and 50 million and 6,75,000 people have died in the USA, 500 million (one-third of the world’s population) was affected due to this disease. In India, 12 to 13 million people died. North and West India was affected severely than the South and East India, nearly 5% of India’s population was vanished due to this disease.

Coronavirus

Today, Coronavirus became the biggest threat to this world. This virus can affect all age group persons and the people above 60 are at a high risk of getting severe Covid-19. The virus has been named as SARS-CoV-2 It is unknown how this virus has emerged in this world. It was estimated that this virus has emerged from the wet market in Wuhan in China. Still some countries like the USA held that coronavirus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and also held that it was a man-made virus. As this virus has emerged from China, the President of America, Donald Trump called this virus ‘The Chinese Virus’. The virus is challenging because it affects different people differently. The most symptoms are fever, dry cough and tiredness. Some people are affected by aches and pain, sore throat, diarrhoea, headache, loss of taste or smell or rashes on the skin. Even some people were affected without any symptoms. In India, more 2.25 million people were affected by this disease and more than 45,000 people have died right now. Yesterday Russia registered their vaccine against coronavirus, this was the first vaccine against this virus. The President of Russia, Putin announced this good news and also he stated that one of his two daughters has received a dose of vaccine and is feeling well. His daughter had a temperature of 38 degree Celsius on the day of the first vaccine injection and then it dropped to 37 degree Celsius on the following day. This new vaccine was developed jointly by the Gamaleya Research Institute and the Russian Defence Ministry. This new vaccine makes hope among the people in this pandemic situation. We hope that this pandemic situation will come to an end as soon as possible. Stay Indoors! Stay safe!