Pandemics: Past, Present, Future: That is Like Choosing Between Cholera and Plague

Overview

Journal APMIS

Specialties Allergy & Immunology
Microbiology
Pathology

Date 2020 Nov 27

PMID 33244837

Citations 17

Authors

Niels Hoiby

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The major epidemic and pandemic diseases that have bothered humans since the Neolithic Age and Bronze Age are surveyed. Many of these pandemics are zoonotic infections, and the mathematical modeling of such infections is illustrated. Plague, cholera, syphilis, influenza, SARS, MERS, COVID-19, and new potential epidemic and pandemic infections and their consequences are described and the background for the spread of acute and chronic infections and the transition to endemic infections is discussed. The way we can prevent and fight pandemics is illustrated from the old and new well-known pandemics. Surprisingly, the political reactions through different periods have not changed much during the centuries.

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