Vol. 38, No. 18

1-24-2008
By: Kristen Convery

Preparing for the threat: A primer on pandemics

The pandemic flu that struck the world in 1918 had the makings of a gruesome science fiction movie.

The Spanish flu killed an estimated 50 million people — many more than ultimately died in World War I, which was raging at the time the disease hit.

The young and healthy were more vulnerable than the elderly. The flu was extremely contagious; witnesses reported victims dying within hours of the onset of symptoms.

And the symptoms were horrific. Victims drowned in the body fluids that filled their lungs.

“Flu becomes the poster child, just because it maybe creates the most vivid imagery of how an infection can wipe out a population, but there are many infections that we need to be concerned about,” said Larry Schlesinger, director of the infectious diseases division at the Ohio State Medical Center.

The following are just a few examples:

Influenza
The 20th century saw three bouts of pandemic influenza: The Spanish flu of 1918-19, the Asian influenza of 1957-58, and the Hong Kong influenza of 1968-69. The Asian flu killed between 1 and 2 million people, and the Hong Kong strain killed about 700,000 people. Each year, about 36,000 people in the U.S. die from the flu.

MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
Hospital-associated infections are the most common complication patients face during a hospital stay, Schlesinger said. Drug-resistant staph infection is of particular concern. It varies in seriousness, sometimes showing up only as an irksome skin infection, but sometimes infecting blood and surgery wounds and causing pneumonia.

Tuberculosis
A contagious bacterial infection that attacks the lungs, tuberculosis kills about 3 million people per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Certain forms of tuberculosis are drug-resistant. The illness is especially worrisome when it affects patients whose immune systems are compromised, such as those undergoing chemotherapy and those who are HIV-positive.

Malaria
Spread by mosquitoes, malaria causes more than a million deaths per year, mostly killing children in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Drug-resistant strains are a rising problem, Schlesinger said.

“We don’t have drugs to treat malaria anymore.”

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)
Scientists identified SARS, a respiratory virus spread by close personal contact, in November 2002. By the following summer, when the World Health Organizations declared the end of the global outbreak, 774 people had died.

HIV/AIDS
Discovered in the U.S. in 1981, HIV was detected throughout the world within a year and now is virtually uncontrolled in third-world countries in Asia and Africa.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates that about 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.

More than half of those infected live in Africa, where the virus killed some 2 million people last year. Resistance to antiretroviral drugs is an increasing concern.

onCampus Home