By Aishat M. Abisola
With the re-emergence of Ebola and the appearance of hantavirus these past few weeks, it feels hard to imagine a time when these diseases will either phase out or be combated with the creation of a new vaccine.
Throughout time, many diseases and viruses have had devastating effects on human population growth. Our ancestors and older civilizations often faced near extinction due to a lack of proper health measures or medication.
It is somewhat disconcerting to realise that some of the diseases that died out or were phased out by vaccines had led to an unfortunate number of deaths. We can look at the statistics of that time, but never truly realise the despair and desperation that was felt in their attempts to survive.
With the latest advancements in modern medicine and technology, we are able to improve our surveillance methods and accurately prevent most outbreaks before they cause much harm. This does not mean that we cannot look back at the past and see how diseases were prevented, cured or disappeared without a trace
Below is a recap of pandemics/outbreaks of diseases that died out silently over the generations.
- PLAGUE OF ATHENS
In the midst of the Peloponnesian War, Athens was struck by an infectious disease of unknown origins, which then spread across parts of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The “Plague of Athens”, which many believe in sub-Saharan Africa, led to the deaths of almost 100,000 people – estimated to be one-third of the city-state’s population at that time – and was considered to likely be the most lethal epidemic in the history of Classical Greece.
One Greek historian, Thucydides, at the time wrote, “people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.” As one of the infected, Thucydides recorded the outbreak in his History of the Peloponnesian War, and identified the symptoms and experiences of the afflicted.
Although the origin of the disease that caused the plague was never discovered, some clues have led to it being considered to be a typhoid or Ebola-like disease. 800 years later, it would eventually lead to the bubonic plague. - JUSTINIAN PLAGUE
Many are unaware that three of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history were caused by a single bacterium, Yersinia pestis, which is a fatal infection otherwise known as the plague.
The Justinian Plague started its reign of terror in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in 541 CE. The virus was carried over the Mediterranean Sea from Egypt, as plague-infected fleas would cling onto black rats that snacked on grain.
The plague devastated Constantinople and spread unimpeded across Europe, Asia, North Africa and Arabia, leading to the deaths of approximately 30 to 50 million people, possibly half of the world’s population.
Back then, people were unaware of how to fight the plague other than by avoiding the infected. It is unknown as to what ended the plague, but it is assumed that some people survived and among those were people with immunity. - BLACK DEATH/BUBONIC PLAGUE
The bubonic plague is an extremely infectious disease spread by fleas that bite their hosts (usually rats and humans), infecting them with the bacteria that cause the disease.
The first wave, which was known as the Black Death in Europe, was from 1347 to 1351, and the second wave in the 1500s saw the emergence of a new virulent strain of the disease.
The Black Death is most likely the earliest recorded pandemic. It spent four years travelling along the Silk Road from the Steppes of Central Asia, via Crimea, to the westernmost parts of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. It wiped out approximately one to two-thirds of the population in Europe, leaving many communities stunned with no idea how to respond.
The most common symptom was the appearance of painful bubos, the reason behind the name bubonic plague in the groin, neck and armpits, which would later secrete pus and blood. Acute fevers and vomiting of blood followed afterwards. The infected usually died between two and seven days after being infected, and the death rate was 60–90 per cent.
The Black Death came at an interesting time as the world was brimming with emerging empires, greater exploration and new discoveries.
When the Black Death arrived in Europe on Italian trading ships from Crimea, the Italian authorities issued the first-ever official public health measures. Many local and civic authorities became heavily involved in public health for the first time, and many of the measures they put in place were used repeatedly for centuries afterwards to control any infectious disease outbreak.
At first, sailors were isolated on their ships for 30 days, which became known in Venetian law as a trentino before the forced isolation was increased to 40 days or a quarantino, the origin of the word quarantine and the start of its practice in the Western world.
The first pandemic wave died out in Europe after four years, but small pockets of the disease remained, and small isolated outbreaks continued until the rise of the second pandemic in the late 1500s.
The second wave witnessed a vicious strain of the disease, which affected France badly and led to two and a half million deaths between 1600 and 1670. Epidemics also hit Italy, Holland and England. The last major outbreak occurred in London from 1665 to 1666, right before the Great Fire of London began. - SPANISH FLU
The “Spanish Flu” (1918–1919) was a global phenomenon far more catastrophic than COVID-19. An estimated 500 million people (about one-third of the world’s population at the time) were infected, and as many as 50 million died from the disease.
Similar to COVID-19, the Spanish Flu attacked a human population that was unable to defend itself from the disease. It also had terrible timing as it appeared in the last year of World War I, and spread rapidly among troops on both sides of the conflict who, unfortunately, were in the age range most susceptible to it – 20 to 40 years old. It would not be unfair to say that the disease killed soldiers almost as effectively as the guns.
Unlike popular belief, the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain. This is because the virus spread quickly during World War I, and Spain, a neutral nation, was allowed to publish early accounts of the illness. Despite being the first to report it, they were not the first to get infected. It is understandable why some Spaniards are ambivalent about the name. - SARS DISEASE
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS for short, is a viral zoonotic respiratory disease that is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, which is the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. The first known cases occurred in November 2002, leading to the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.
Those infected by SARS experience flu-like symptoms such as fever, muscle pain, lethargy, cough, sore throat, and other nonspecific symptoms. SARS infections usually led to shortness of breath and pneumonia.
The world’s first introduction to SARS began with an email to the Beijing office of the World Health Organisation on 10 February 2003, which stated that “a strange contagious disease” had killed 100 people in a week.
Early SARS cases had appeared in Guangdong, China, where wet markets usually sold a variety of animals and carcasses were often left nearby, making it obvious how the disease initially appeared. In the next two years, the virus infected at least 8,096 people, 774 of whom died.
Similar to COVID-19, SARS is an RNA virus, which means it has the capabilities to evolve rapidly, and it was spread through water droplets expelled when breathing, which are hard to avoid. At that time, many health experts believed that SARS could cause an unprecedented amount of devastation on the same level as the HIV crisis, or even the 1918 flu pandemic, which infected a third of the world’s population and killed 50 million.
However, SARS’ disappearance was as surprising as its arrival. By January 2004, there were only a handful of cases – the last suspected infection was declared at the end of the month.
If we are being honest, the only reason SARS died out is mainly due to luck. SARS became extinct through a combination of properly implemented public health measures and the disease’s quirks.
A SARS outbreak was contained by public health measures, including isolation, PPE, and contact tracing; no cases have been reported since 2004. The United States CDC produced a vaccine for SARS-CoV-1, which was stockpiled but never used. It is highly recommended that, in case of future outbreaks, precautions should include proper hand hygiene, usage of masks and gloves, disinfecting items and surfaces, and quarantine when necessary.
Conclusion
It may seem odd or terrifying, but the chances are high that we will most likely be dealing with pandemics and new viruses emerging till the end of time. Although modern medicine, advancements in technology and improved hygiene standards have protected us thus far, the recent outbreaks of Ebola and hantavirus are strict reminders.
History will always repeat itself regardless of the situation, and we need to remember that outbreaks do the same. Learning from past pandemics can also help us protect ourselves not just now but in the future as well.
