Pandemics
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Consequences of Pandemics Health Impacts The direct health impacts of pandemics can be catastrophic. During the Black Death, an estimated 30–50 percent of the European population perished (DeWitte 2014). More recently, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed more than 35 million persons since 1981 (WHO Global Health Observatory data, http://www.who.int/gho/hiv/en). Pandemics can disproportionately affect younger, more economically…
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Most new pandemics have originated through the “zoonotic” transmission of pathogens from animals to humans (Murphy 1998; Woolhouse and Gowtage-Sequeria 2005), and the next pandemic is likely to be a zoonosis as well. Zoonoses enter into human populations from both domesticated animals (such as farmed swine or poultry) and wildlife. But many historically significant zoonoses were…
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Pandemics Definition Pandemics are large-scale outbreaks of infectious disease that can greatly increase morbidity and mortality over a wide geographic area and cause significant economic, social, and political disruption. Evidence suggests that the likelihood of pandemics has increased over the past century because of increased global travel and integration, urbanization, changes in land use, and…
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