02/28/2020 - 17:58
- Clarín.com
- Society
The coronavirus has the entire world on alert, but it is not the first time that the planet is in danger because of diseases that have decimated populations or caused serious damage worldwide.
The multinational risk agency Marsh and McLennan recounts in its report " Preparing for pandemics: risk mitigation and financing strategies ", published in January this year, of five moments that kept the world in a dizzying fight against new pathogens. The introduction of the disclosure document states: "Despite advances in medicine and improved infection control practices, the swine flu and Zika pandemics of the past decade, and the new coronavirus currently under development, they are a crude reminder of the dangers of rapidly spreading diseases. "
The "Spanish Flu" (1918)
The WHO indicates the so-called "Spanish Flu" of 1918 as the first of the 20th century . It infected an estimated 500 million people and one in five died, bringing the number of deaths to 100 million .
When the world was recovering from the end of World War I, the pandemic spread and affected, more than children and the elderly, young men and women. He received that name because the Spanish press, as it was not a country that participated in the conflict, reported uncensored what was happening.
The economic impact of the pandemic was also felt in the post-war period: GDPs of various powers of the moment were affected. That of the United States suffered a fall of 11%, that of the United Kingdom fell by 17% and that of Canada, 15%.
The "Asian Flu" (1957 - 1958)
In April 1957, while Argentina obtained its eleventh title in the Copa América, the world was shaken again, although to a lesser extent by what was later called "the Asian flu". It was an outbreak of the influenza virus AH2N2. The initial focus of contagion was Beijing and from there it spread to Hong Kong and Singapore. It is estimated that there were between 700,000 and 1.5 million deaths .
Controls students who arrived by boat to New York, from Rotterdam, in 1957, in time of the Asian flu.
The economies of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Japan were the most affected, with a 3% drop in GDP.
The "Hong Kong Flu" (1968)
Eleven years passed before another pandemic occurred. It emerged from the outbreak of the H3N2 influenza virus, a mutation of H2N2 . The most affected groups were people over 65 and an estimated one million people died.
The economic losses for the United States were between 2,300 and 2,600 million dollars.
With regard to the economic consequences, WHO explains that: "The mortality rates of these outbreaks are generally much lower than the health crises of the past, in large part, due to advances in medicine and infrastructure, however, the possible economic impacts of today's health crises may have a much greater reach than previous crises. "
The HIV / AIDS pandemic (1981)
In the 1980s, the initial outbreak of this syndrome occurred, which was pejoratively described as "pink plague" and which, until recently, was interpreted as a certain death. According to WHO, HIV infected more than 70 million people and is estimated to have caused about 36 million deaths.
The HIV / AIDS pandemic caused 36 million deaths.
The most affected area is sub-Saharan Africa, where there is a decrease in GDP growth of between 2% and 4% in the countries of that region due to the challenges to control its spread.
SARS Pandemic (2003)
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) affected 37 countries. 8,098 possible cases were detected and there were 744 deaths , while economic losses exceeded 12,000 million dollars: 4,000 million dollars in Hong Kong, between 3,000 and 6,000 million dollars in Canada, and 5,000 million dollars in Singapore.
An elderly woman wearing a chinstrap to protect herself against the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, in a park in Beijing. (FILE / EFE)
Today, the World Bank estimates that the cost of a severe influenza pandemic can amount to a total equivalent to 5% of world GDP, as reported in the report.
Regarding this count, Jordi Torres, a UBA Microbiology teaching physician, warns that: "The context of the Spanish flu was different, the technology was different. There is no point of comparison with the knowledge we have today. There are many more tools to study the etiological agents in depth In spite of all this, one should not underestimate nature and evolution In less than two months an underestimated etiological agent (COVID-19) began to spread throughout the world and proved to be a highly efficient virus to infect. "
Pandemic of swine flu / influenza A (2009)
It was caused by a variant of Influenzavirus A (subtype H1N1). Originally it was known as swine flu but the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to call it influenza A (H1N1) .5 6. This is a description of the virus: letter A designates the family of human influenza viruses and that of some animals such as pigs and birds, and the letters H and N (Hemagglutinins and Neuraminidases) correspond to the surface proteins of the virus that characterize it.
Vaccination against influenza A in Argentina.
In June 2009, WHO classified it as alert level six; that is, "pandemic in progress". And in August 2010 he announced the end of the pandemic that had gone around the world . The pandemic had a low mortality, in contrast to its wide distribution, leaving about 19,000 victims.
In Argentina there were 626 deaths from Influenza A. At the time, researchers from the Malbrán Institute, in Buenos Aires, and the University of Columbia, in the US, came to a conclusion that the severity of cases of the H1N1 influenza virus in the country was due to a co -infection with the pneumococcus bacteria, which was not detected in other countries.
Epidemic of Ebola (2013)
The virus originated in December 2013 in Guinea and within a few months it became an epidemic outbreak spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, United States, Spain, Mali and the United Kingdom. 28,646 cases were detected and produced 11,323 deaths, all in African countries except one in the United States .
WHO declared the end of the public health emergency of international importance on March 29, 2016, although it maintains surveillance in the countries most affected by the occurrence of isolated cases due to isolated remains of the outbreak.
Zika virus pandemic (2015)
In 2014 the virus that is transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, spread eastward across the Pacific Ocean to French Polynesia, and then to Easter Island to arrive in 2015 and 2016 to Central America, the Caribbean and South America, where the Zika epidemic outbreak reached the pandemic level affecting 76 countries, especially Brazil .
The Aedes mosquito, transmitter of the Zika viruz. Photo: AP
The disease produces symptoms similar to mild forms of dengue, its treatment basically consists of rest, and currently there are no medications or vaccines for its prevention. During the pandemic, 2,656 cases of microcephaly or malformations of the central nervous system caused by the virus were reported.
In 2016, Zika virus circulation was registered for the first time in Argentina : a case of sexual transmission in Córdoba and 26 cases of vector transmission in Tucumán. In addition, in relation to these outbreaks, 2 cases of congenital syndrome associated with Zika were identified in Tucumán and Santa Fe.
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