In honor of Halloween and the birth of the seventh billion person born (blessings and happiness to the Camacho-Galura family in Manila), it’s time to address disease in general. While we focus on side effects of specific drugs, and, yes, you are far more likely to be struck by one of them than you are a plague, let’s take a look at some of the world’s worst diseases. Can you get these by taking a pill? No. Not yet.
Plague
The black plague, or Black Death, wiped out between 30 and 60 percent of Europe in the 14th century. At the beginning of the plague, which is suspected to have spread from China, there were around 450 million people in the world. After the plague ran its course, there were an estimated 350 to 375 million. It took the world’s population over 150 years to recover. While this is bad, the Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, is estimated to have wiped out almost half of Europe’s population. Constantinople itself lost 40 percent of its inhabitants.
Currently, plagues come and go. The bacterium that caused the Black Death, Yersinia pestis, is still around. Bubonic plague rears its head yearly in the US, but its victims are mostly prairie dogs these days. Hope your cat or dog doesn’t bring it home, if you know what’s good for you.
Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
OK, so it isn’t a disease, but VHFs are terribly frightening. Fever, bleeding out, and death are par for the course here. The most popular of these is Ebola. However, there’s also Lassa, Hantavirus, Rift Valley fever, Dengue and Marburg. These are more likely to occur in Africa and South America, both tropical and underdeveloped.
Sticking with Ebola, a disease centered around Lake Victoria, which sits between Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, the average fatality rate is over 50%. Luckily, it isn’t highly contagious. Unfortunately for the victims, this is because you’re probably going to die before anyone else catches it from you. It is thought to be caught from bats. Chimpanzees and gorillas may have been the cause of infections in 2001 and 2003, but fruit bats may have given it to them.
Symptoms are terrifying, including a sudden onset of fever, chills, malaise, chest pain, and nausea. This then leads to abdominal pains, diarrhea, vomiting, sore throat, hiccups, cough, and other respiratory problems. If victims get to the headache, confusion, seizures, and coma stage, it will most likely be accompanied by blood from the mucous membranes, and bruising, or hematomas, at various parts of the body.
Influenza
In 1918 and 1919, the Spanish Flu killed around 100 million people around the world. As a true pandemic, this was not just your typical flu. According to one doctor on the scene, “The faces wear a bluish cast; a cough brings up the blood-stained sputum. In the morning, the dead bodies are stacked about the morgue like cordwood.” It was said the lucky ones simply drowned caused by the fluid in their lungs. The unlucky developed bacterial pneumonia and suffered in agony. At the time, there was no cure because antibiotics were not available.
More recently, H1N1 and H5N1, avian influenza or the bird flu, has people concerned. This is because the virus may mutate and spread worldwide. First infecting birds, it has already spread to humans. It can survive in the environment for long periods and can be picked up simply by touching an infected surface. The first breakout was in Hong Kong in 1997, which was linked to poultry. It spread throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, killing 60 percent of those who caught it. This is a serious concern today because of global travel. What starts in Asia may be in Europe the next day, and the US after that.
There is treatment available, but there are different types of avian flu now. Symptoms include coughing, diarrhea, fever over 100.4 F, headache, muscle aches, difficulty breathing and more. Experts say the outlook for those who catch it depends of its severity. Death is possible.
Prevention for all these diseases depends on the situation. Avoiding avian flu means avoiding going to countries where it is present. However, it is impossible to keep out everyone who may be infected from traveling to the US, or even your hometown.
The key to keeping from freaking out in a world where you can catch something fatal because the infected breathed on you, or coming down with a terrible side effect from a drug is to remember that it most likely will not happen. In fact, you are more likely to be brought down by the flu than you are by taking a drug that may cause side effects.
However, if you are sickened by a drug, please contact an experienced defective drug attorney in your area. If you realize the world’s population is being overrun with a deadly disease, run for the hills.