Professional Documents
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Disease Impact 2
Disease Impact 2
Disease Impacts
Table of Contents
***DISEASE***
DISEASE GENERAL
DISEASE GENERAL
10
FLU IMPACT
12
VIRUS IMPACT
14
SARS IMPACT
15
16
19
20
TB IMPACT 21
TB IMPACT 22
SWINE FLU IMPACT
24
31
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***Disease***
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Disease General
Epidemics will cause human extinction
Discover 2k (Twenty Ways the World Could End by Corey Powell in Discover
Magazine, October 2000, http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld)
If Earth doesn't do us in, our fellow organisms might be up to the task. Germs and people have
always coexisted, but occasionally the balance gets out of whack. The Black Plague killed one
European in four during the 14th century; influenza took at least 20 million lives between
1918 and 1919; the AIDS epidemic has produced a similar death toll and is still going
strong. From 1980 to 1992, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
mortality from infectious disease in the United States rose 58 percent. Old diseases such as
cholera and measles have developed new resistance to antibiotics. Intensive agriculture and land
development is bringing humans closer to animal pathogens. International travel means diseases
can spread faster than ever. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who recently left
the Minnesota Department of Health, described the situation as "like trying to swim against the
current of a raging river." The grimmest possibility would be the emergence of a strain that spreads
so fast we are caught off guard or that resists all chemical means of control, perhaps as a result of
our stirring of the ecological pot. About 12,000 years ago, a sudden wave of mammal
extinctions swept through the Americas. Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of
Natural History argues the culprit was extremely virulent disease, which humans helped
transport as they migrated into the New World.
Disease leads to extinction
Toolis, the director of a major television series on the history of
plagues, 09
(Kevin, The Express, April 28, 2009 U.K. 1st Edition Pandemic Pandemonium lexis)
It destroyed the Roman Empire, wiped out most of the New World and killed millions in
Europe. How disease - not just Mexico's swine fever - has shaped the planet
SCIENTISTS call it the Big Die Off, when a terrifying new virus rips through a species
and kills up to a third of the entire population. And we all now could be facing a new
apocalypse, though no one yet knows how potent the new strain of Mexican swine fever
will be, or how many millions could die. Yet if history teaches us anything it tells us that
the greatest danger the human race faces is not some crackpot North Korean dictator but
a six-gene virus that could wipe out one third of the global population. Our real enemy, a
new plague virus, is so small you can barely see it even with an advanced electron
microscope. It has no morality, no thought or no plan. All it wants to do is reproduce
itself inside another human body. We are just another biological opportunity, a nice warm
place to feed and replicate. Viruses are as old as life itself. What is startling though is how
vulnerable our globalised societies are to the threat of a new deadly plague. Before World
Health Organisation scientists could identify this new H1N1 virus it had travelled
halfway across the world via international flights.
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Disease General
A pandemic is imminent it will end civilization evidence to the contrary is simply
ingrained in our subconscious and should be rejected, it doesnt assume economic
and societal collapse that would result from a large scale pandemic
New Scientist, major journal and winner of the Royal Statistical
Society 2008 Award for Statistical Excellence in Journalism,
2008.
(April 5, 2008, "Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?")
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19826501.400-will-a-pandemicbring-down-civilisation.html
Will a pandemic bring down civilisation? FOR years we have been warned that a pandemic is coming. It could be flu, it could be something else. We know that lots of people will
die. As terrible as this will be, on an ever more crowded planet, you can't help wondering whether the survivors might be better off in some ways. Wouldn't it be easier to rebuild
modern society into something more sustainable if, perish the thought, there were fewer of us. Yet would life ever return to something resembling normal after a devastating
Virologists sometimes talk about their nightmare scenarios - a plague like ebola or
smallpox - as "civilisation ending". Surely they are exaggerating. Aren't they? Many
people dismiss any talk of collapse as akin to the street-corner prophet warning that the
end is nigh. In the past couple of centuries, humanity has innovated its way past so many
predicted plagues, famines and wars - from Malthus to Dr Strangelove - that anyone who
takes such ideas seriously tends to be labeled a doom-monger. There is a widespread
belief that our society has achieved a scale, complexity and level of innovation that make
it immune from collapse. "It's an argument so ingrained both in our subconscious and in
public discourse that it has assumed the status of objective reality," writes biologist and geographer Jared
Diamond of the University of California, Los Angeles, author of the 2005 book Collapse. "We think we are different." Ever more vulnerable A growing
number of researchers, however, are coming to the conclusion that far from becoming
ever more resilient, our society is becoming ever more vulnerable (see page 30). In a severe pandemic, the disease might
only be the start of our problems. No scientific study has looked at whether a pandemic with a high mortality could cause social
collapse - at least none that has been made public. The vast majority of plans for
weathering a pandemic all fail even to acknowledge that crucial systems might collapse,
let alone take it into account. There have been many pandemics before, of course. In
1348, the Black Death killed about a third of Europe's population. Its impact was huge,
but European civilisation did not collapse. After the Roman empire was hit by a plague
with a similar death rate around AD 170, however, the empire tipped into a downward
spiral towards collapse. Why the difference? In a word: complexity. In the 14th century,
Europe was a feudal hierarchy in which more than 80 per cent of the population were
peasant farmers. Each death removed a food producer, but also a consumer, so there was
little net effect. "In a hierarchy, no one is so vital that they can't be easily replaced," says Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Monarchs died, but life went on." Individuals matter The Roman empire was also a hierarchy, but with a difference: it had
a huge urban population - not equalled in Europe until modern times - which depended
on peasants for grain, taxes and soldiers. "Population decline affected agriculture, which
affected the empire's ability to pay for the military, which made the empire less able to
keep invaders out," says anthropologist and historian Joseph Tainter at Utah State University in Logan. "Invaders in turn further weakened peasants and
agriculture." A high-mortality pandemic could trigger a similar result now, Tainter says. "Fewer consumers
mean the economy would contract, meaning fewer jobs, meaning even fewer consumers.
Loss of personnel in key industries would hurt too." Bar-Yam thinks the loss of key people would be crucial. "Losing pieces
pandemic?
indiscriminately from a highly complex system is very dangerous," he says. "One of the most profound results of complex systems research is that when systems are highly
complex, individuals matter." One of the most profound results is that when systems are highly complex, individuals matter The same conclusion has emerged from a
completely different source: tabletop "simulations" in which political and economic leaders work through what would happen as a hypothetical flu pandemic plays out. "One of the
big 'Aha!' moments is always when company leaders realise how much they need key people," says Paula Scalingi, who runs pandemic simulations for the Pacific Northwest
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truck
drivers. When a strike blocked petrol deliveries from the UK's oil refineries for 10 days in
2000, nearly a third of motorists ran out of fuel, some train and bus services were
cancelled, shops began to run out of food, hospitals were reduced to running minimal
services, hazardous waste piled up, and bodies went unburied. Afterwards, a study by Alan McKinnon of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh,
UK, predicted huge economic losses and a rapid deterioration in living conditions if all road
haulage in the UK shut down for just a week. What would happen in a pandemic when
many truckers are sick, dead or too scared to work? Even if a pandemic is relatively mild,
many might have to stay home to care for sick family or look after children whose
schools are closed. Even a small impact on road haulage would quickly have severe
knock-on effects. One reason is just-in-time delivery. Over the past few decades, people who use or sell commodities from coal to aspirin have stopped keeping
economic region of the US. "People are the critical infrastructure." Vital hubs Especially vital are "hubs" - the people whose actions link all the rest. Take
large stocks, because to do so is expensive. They rely instead on frequent small deliveries. Cities typically have only three days' worth of food, and the old saying about
civilisations being just three or four meals away from anarchy is taken seriously by security agencies such as MI5 in the UK. In the US, plans for dealing with a pandemic call for
people to keep three weeks' worth of food and water stockpiled. Some planners think everyone should have at least 10 weeks' worth. How long would your stocks last if shops
emptied and your water supply
dried up? Even if everyone were willing, US officials warn that many people might not be able to afford to stockpile enough food. Two-day supply Hospitals rely on daily
deliveries of drugs, blood and gases. "Hospital pandemic plans fixate on having enough ventilators," says public health specialist Michael Osterholm at the University of
Minnesota in Minneapolis, who has been calling for broader preparation for a pandemic. "But they'll run out of oxygen to put through them first. No hospital has more than a twoday supply." Equally critical is chlorine for water purification plants. Hospital pandemic plans fixate on having enough ventilators. But they'll run out of oxygen first It's not
only absentee truck drivers that could cripple the transport system; new drivers can be drafted in and trained fairly quickly, after all. Trucks need fuel, too. What if staff at the
refineries that produce it don't show up for work? "We think that if we can make people feel safe about coming to work, we'll have about 25 per cent staff absences if we get a flu
pandemic like the one in 1918," says Jon Lay, head of global emergency preparedness for ExxonMobil. If that happens, then by postponing non-essential tasks, and making sure
crucial suppliers also hang tough, "we can maintain the supply of products that are critical to society". Some models, however, suggest absenteeism sparked by a 1918-type
pandemic could cut the workforce by half at the peak of a pandemic wave. "If we have 50 per cent absences, it's a different story," says Lay, who says his company has not
teaching its employees "virus avoidance techniques" in the hope that they will then "experience a lower rate of flu onset and mortality" than the general population. The fact is that
the best way for people to avoid the virus will be to stay home. But if everyone does this - or if too many people try to stockpile supplies after a crisis begins - the impact of even a
show there won't be enough bandwidth to meet demand, says Scalingi. And what if the power goes off? This is where the complex interdependencies could prove disastrous.
Refineries make diesel fuel not only for trucks but also for the trains that deliver coal to electricity generators, which now usually have only 20 days' reserve supply, Osterholm
notes. Coal-fired plants supply 30 per cent of the UK's electricity, 50 per cent of the US's and 85 per cent of Australia's. Powerless The coal mines need electricity to keep
working. Pumping oil through pipelines and water through mains also requires electricity. Making electricity depends largely on coal; getting coal depends on electricity; they all
need refineries and key people; the people need transport, food and clean water. If one part of the system starts to fail, the
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prove to be flawed, we could struggle." Planners focus on single-point events like the Buncefield fire, but a pandemic happens everywhere The main assumption is how
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The world's most famous physicist said he was more worried about a virus than nuclear
weapons destroying life and said future generations would have to face living in space.
Prof Hawking said he was optimistic life would continue, but warned the danger of
extinction remained because of man's aggressive nature. Other leading scientists agreed
that humans would have to take action to avoid being wiped out like previous dominant
Earth species, such as the dinosaurs, but said there was no need for any immediate panic.
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Flu Impact
Influenza and viruses lead to extinction
Yu, Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, 09
(Victoria, May 22, DUJS aims to increase scientific awareness within the Dartmouth
community by providing an interdisciplinary forum, Human Extinction: The Uncertainty
of Our Fate, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-ofour-fate)
A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to
viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of
the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been
developed for the plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are
constantly emerging a process that maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated
human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemiccausing virus. It is true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure
for AIDS, mainly due to HIVs rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors
account for the viruss abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIVs use of reverse
transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an
error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, there are
certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global
infection: HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself,
and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune
system. However, for more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of
new strains could prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of
antigenic drift (point mutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the interspecies transfer of disease) in the influenza virus could produce a new version of
influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since influenza can
spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a global influenza pandemic,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of
this variety came in 1918 when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around
the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps even
more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original
viral strain which could only infect birds into a human-viable strain (10).
Even a mild pandemic collapses the global economy and kills millions
Osterholm, Director of the center for infectious Disease
Research and Policy, 2005
Michael, Preparing for the next Pandemic, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, Iss. 4, July/August
Summary: If an influenza pandemic struck today, borders would close, the global
economy would shut down, international vaccine supplies and health-care systems would
be overwhelmed, and panic would reign. To limit the fallout, the industrialized world
must create a detailed response strategy involving the public and private sectors. FEAR
ITSELF Dating back to antiquity, influenza pandemics have posed the greatest threat of a
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worldwide calamity caused by infectious disease. Over the past 300 years, ten influenza
pandemics have occurred among humans. The most recent came in 1957-58 and 1968-69,
and although several tens of thousands of Americans died in each one, these were
considered mild compared to others. The 1918-19 pandemic was not. According to recent
analysis, it killed 50 to 100 million people globally. Today, with a population of 6.5
billion, more than three times that of 1918, even a "mild" pandemic could kill many
millions of people. A number of recent events and factors have significantly heightened
concern that a specific near-term pandemic may be imminent. It could be caused by
H5N1, the avian influenza strain currently circulating in Asia. At this juncture scientists
cannot be certain. Nor can they know exactly when a pandemic will hit, or whether it will
rival the experience of 1918-19 or be more muted like 1957-58 and 1968-69. The reality
of a coming pandemic, however, cannot be avoided. Only its impact can be lessened.
Some important preparatory efforts are under way, but much more needs to be done by
institutions at many levels of society.
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Flu Impact
Pandemic influenza would destroy the global economy SARS proves
Osterholm, Director of the center for infectious Disease
Research and Policy, 2005
Michael, Preparing for the next Pandemic, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, Iss. 4, July/August
The arrival of a pandemic influenza would trigger a reaction that would change the world
overnight. A vaccine would not be available for a number of months after the pandemic
started, and there are very limited stockpiles of antiviral drugs. Plus, only a few
privileged areas of the world have access to vaccine-production facilities. Foreign trade
and travel would be reduced or even ended in an attempt to stop the virus from entering
new countries - - even though such efforts would probably fail given the infectiousness of
influenza and the volume of illegal crossings that occur at most borders. It is likely that
transportation would also be significantly curtailed domestically, as smaller communities
sought to keep the disease contained. The world relies on the speedy distribution of
products such as food and replacement parts for equipment. Global, regional, and
national economies would come to an abrupt halt -- something that has never happened
due to HIV, malaria, or TB despite their dramatic impact on the developing world. The
closest the world has come to this scenario in modern times was the SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome) crisis of 2003. Over a period of five months, about 8,000 people
were infected by a novel human coronavirus. About ten percent of them died. The virus
apparently spread to humans when infected animals were sold and slaughtered in
unsanitary and crowded markets in China's Guangdong Province. Although the
transmission rate of SARS paled in comparison to that of influenza, it demonstrated how
quickly such an infectious agent can circle the globe, given the ease and frequency of
international travel. Once SARS emerged in rural China, it spread to five countries within
24 hours and to 30 countries on six continents within several months. The SARS
experience teaches a critical lesson about the potential global response to a pandemic
influenza. Even with the relatively low number of deaths it caused compared to other
infectious diseases, SARS had a powerful negative psychological impact on the
populations of many countries. In a recent analysis of the epidemic, the National
Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine concluded: "The relatively high case-fatality
rate, the identification of super-spreaders, the newness of the disease, the speed of its
global spread, and public uncertainty about the ability to control its spread may have
contributed to the public's alarm. This alarm, in turn, may have led to the behavior that
exacerbated the economic blows to the travel and tourism industries of the countries with
the highest number of cases." SARS provided a taste of the impact a killer influenza
pandemic would have on the global economy. Jong-Wha Lee, of Korea University, and
Warwick McKibbin, of the Australian National University, estimated the economic
impact of the six-month SARS epidemic on the Asia-Pacific region at about $40 billion.
In Canada, 438 people were infected and 43 died after an infected person traveled from
Hong Kong to Toronto, and the Canadian Tourism Commission estimated that the
epidemic cost the nation's economy $419 million. The Ontario health minister estimated
that SARS cost the province's health-care system about $763 million, money that was
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spent, in part, on special SARS clinics and supplies to protect health-care workers. The
SARS outbreak also had a substantial impact on the global airline industry. After the
disease hit in 2003, flights in the Asia-Pacific area decreased by 45 percent from the year
before. During the outbreak, the number of flights between Hong Kong and the United
States fell 69 percent. And this impact would pale in comparison to that of a 12- to 36month worldwide influenza pandemic.
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Virus Impact
We are on the brink of extinction due to the next lethal virus
Jupiter Scientific, org. devoted to the promotion of science and
scientific education, 2003
(http://www.jupiterscientific.org/sciinfo/sars.html)
Typically each year, between 600 million and 1 billion people around the world catch the
flu, and 20,000 people die from influenza. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed an estimated 20
million people worldwide. In the fourteenth century, 25 million Europeans, or one-fourth
of the population, died from the bubonic plague, and in India and China, the disease
claimed 12 million and 15 million victims respectively. On one hand, these pandemics
were more contagious than SARS and modern medical methods were not available; on
the other hand, airline travel makes it is easier for SARS to spread globally. This is why
the World Heath Organization has proposed restrictions on certain travel. Initially, the
symptoms of SARS are flu-like: a fever greater than 38.0C (100.4F), a headache and an
overall feeling of discomfort that may include muscle aches and a soar throat. Within a
week, SARS patients usually develop a dry cough, diarrhea and have difficulty breathing
due to pneumonia. In 10 to 20 percent of the cases, respiratory problems become so acute
that patients must be put on a mechanical ventilator. Somewhat less than half of such
patients die. Several laboratory tests exist to detect the SARS virus. While SARS is not
the deadly disease leading to death on a massive scale envisioned in the Jupiter Scientific
report The Hong Kong Chicken Virus, it has a few of the required features. It is very
fortunate that medical organizations have mobilized in they way that they have. When the
next lethal viral scare comes, we may not be so lucky. The end of humanity could be just
a cough away.
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SARS Impact
SARS could soon spread worldwide and cause extinction
Chase, New Age Christian, 2009
(T., January 5 Revelation 13: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) - A New
Age / Bible Prophecy Discussion http://www.revelation13.net/SARS.html)
In mid-March 2003, it was announced to the world that there was a new Pneumonia-like
disease causing a spreading epidemic in the world. A new disease epidemic of Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), started in Guangdong Province in China in
November 2002, and then spread to other countries in Asia: Hong Kong, Vietnam,
Indonesia, Phillipines, Thailand. It had also spread to Canada and the U.S.. Many initial
cases had been linked to a Hotel in Hong Kong. It is a Pneumonia-like illness with an
incubation period of 2 to 7 days. Although SARS has not been seen for years, there is a
great danger of it in the future returning and spreading worldwide. Apparently it is related
Astrologically to Saturn being at its brightest at the start of 2003 (Saturn is equivalent to
Satan, and Satan on earth would also be the dragon, Red China). SARS initially spread
rapidly around the world, and showed signs of mutating for the worse, becoming more
deadly, so there was talk of SARS being a doomsday bug, that will mean the end of the
world or at least the end of civilization. SARS seems to be stopped now, but it could
come back. This bug initially sounded like the movie "The Omega Man" where an
apocalyptic doomsday virus exterminates most of humanity, turning the survivors into
religious cult fanatics. Another doomsday virus movie is "Twelve Monkeys".
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Avian flu has the potential to develop into a global pandemic that would be as devastating
as the Black Death of the 14th century, the World Economic Forum warned yesterday in its assessment of the risks
threatening stability and prosperity. In a worst-case outcome, experts charged with
weighing up systemic dangers said there might be riots to gain access to supplies of
vaccines, a collapse of public order, a partial flight from the cities and large-scale
migration. The report published at the WEF's annual meeting in Davos said there was only a small risk of a return to the economic and social chaos caused by the Black
Death, and it would only occur if bird flu conflated with other risks to the global community. "An outbreak of H5NI [avian flu] human to
human transmission could have devastating impacts globally across all social and
economic sectors, disrupting efficient processes, severely degrading response capabilities
and exacerbating the effects of known weaknesses in different systems," said the report.
The assessment, undertaken by risk experts at the insurance companies Swiss Re and
Marsh and McLennan (MMC), and Merrill Lynch, identified terrorism, an oil-price spike, natural
disasters and a bird-flu pandemic as the big threats in 2006. It added that the speed at which
global risks travelled thanks to globalisation could lead to "rapid and unexpected
contagion of global risks across industries and geographical areas. The interplay of
multiple global risks and their combined ripple effects can create potentially disastrous
"perfect storms" - cumulative events which cause damage far in excess of the sum of each
individual risk event." Avian flu has spread from China as far west as eastern Europe and the number of deaths caused has been relatively
small. The WEF report said nevertheless that there was a remote chance that bird flu could have far more dramatic effects . "These impacts
might include the disruption of supply chains and trade flows; an exacerbation of
financial imbalances and the transformation of intellectual property regimes for
pharmaceutical products; rioting to gain access to scarce supplies of antivirals and
vaccines; a collapse of public order; partial de-urbanisation as people flee population
centres; the extinction of trust in governments; decimation of specific human skill sets;
and forced, large-scale migration, associated with the further collapse of already weak
states."
Avian flu kills a billion people with 60% mortality
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Chandra Deputy National sEcurity Advisor of India 2004 (Satish, , Global Security:
A Broader Concept for the 21st Century, May 7-10, http://www.csdr.org/2004book/chandra.htm)
It is 2015. Despite much debate and warning, the world has done little to address the buildup of greenhouse
gases and the consequent acceleration of global warming, which is accompanied by increasingly
unpredictable world weather patterns. Extreme heat, storms, and droughts have created havoc for farmers. Mega-droughts are affecting major granaries.
The worlds agricultural production and freshwater resources are seriously stretched, reducing the planets carrying capacity. Deaths from famine and drought are in the hundreds
of thousands. Violent and frequent storms are lashing Western Europe, leading to the abandonment of low-lying cities such as The Hague. Rising sea levels have made countries
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other infectious diseases to $ 325 million. Does this mean that the UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular have at last decided to remember
Africa? Suddenly, AIDS was seen as threat to world peace, and Gore would ask the congress to set up millions of dollars on this case. The hope is that
Gore does not intend to make political capital out of this by painting the usually disagreeable Republican-controlled Congress as the bad guy and hope the
buck stops on the whole of current and future U.S. governments' conscience. Maybe there is nothing left to salvage in Africa after all and this talk is about
the African-American vote in November's U.S. presidential vote. Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS
challenge is a fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out man.
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TB Impact
TB causes extinction
Bio-Medicine, 2007 one of the Internets leading online Organizations devoted to
biology and medicine, http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/The-DreadedDisease-Tuberculosis-Raises-Its-Ugly-Head-20674-1/The Dreaded Disease Tuberculosis
Raises Its Ugly Head
When Mr. Andrew Speaker and his wife returned to United States from Europe they were immediately quarantined by the health
officials . Speaker and his family have been fighting back ever since, disputing the accounts of government health officials who contended he had been warned not to fly
because he posed an infection risk to others. The disease in Speaker came to fore when he went for a check up for a rib injury. His X-ray picked up shadow in his right
lung and TB was suspected. Only after intense test it was realized that the TB was drug resistance. But Speaker was not aware of it till late. Until a few weeks ago, many
Americans had never heard of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. But Speaker got plenty of press as he was ordered into federal quarantine, having
crisscrossed the Atlantic on commercial flights while infected with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). In the 1970s, eradicating TB appeared possible.
the drug-resistant strains are winning. Of the 9 million new TB cases each year, an estimated
450,000 are multi-drug resistant, or MDR. Only two-thirds of MDR TB patients are cured. The
World Health Organization estimates that in 2005, there were 27,000 cases in 37 countries of XDR
TB, which is resistant to at least three of the six second-line drugs used when the first drugs fail. The
Now,
cure rate for XDR TB patients is just one-third. Scariest of all, two women in Italy recently died from a fully resistant type of TB that's officially incurable. (Scientists are
terrorizes those whose immunity has been weakened by HIV, hunger, alcoholism
or other diseases. If the new strains become dominant, everyone is at risk. The rising worldwide number of XDR-TB
dubbing it XXDR TB.) Today, TB
cases like Speaker's may herald the end of a glorious 60-year holiday from many common and highly contagious diseases -- such as polio, measles and cholera -- that
once routinely ravaged vast swaths of humanity. Ironically, there has long been a disturbing tendency to romanticize the white plague, as tuberculosis is also known.
, tuberculosis is a messy, agonizing and debilitating ordeal. Once the tubercle bacilli gain the
momentum to proceed unchecked through the body, there is no romance to be found. The actual experience of
tuberculosis is one of exhaustion, drenching bouts of sweating, groaning, a cough punctuated by uncontrollable spurts of blood. XDR TB is already too
widespread to quarantine. We need to combat it globally before it becomes pandemic. Last week, the WHO asked
But in real life
governments worldwide to pay up the $3 billion a year needed to fund existing TB programs and an additional $1 billion a year to combat XDR TB. In the U.S., Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and others
proposed spending $300 million on TB next year, much of it on research. Given that isolating and treating a single XDR patient can cost up to $250,000, the case for spending far more on prevention and
control is self-evident. Today, more than one-third of the world's more than 6 billion people have been exposed to the tuberculosis germ. Five to 10 percent of them, or at least 100 million, will develop
symptomatic TB. Each will infect 10 to 20 people before they are either successfully treated or they die. Last year, active -- and contagious -- tuberculosis was diagnosed in more than 8.8 million people.
Approximately 420,000, or 5 percent, of them have a drug-resistant strain that requires several more
medications than drug-sensitive cases do; about 30,000 of these 420,000 cases are even more difficult
and expensive to treat, the highly lethal XDR-TB.
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TB Impact
The impact is staggering TB kills tens of millions three times as many as AIDS
Tarwater, J.D. Candidate @ Georgetown 1 University Law Center
(Jeremy R., Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, The Tuberculosis & HIV Debate in
Immigration Law: Critical Flaws in United States Academic Anti-Exclusion Arguments,
Winter 2001, 15 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 357, )
V. TUBERCULOSIS The interconnectedness of HIV/AIDS with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and TB "grows increasingly apparent as biomedical and behavioral
scientists learn more about people's susceptibility and risk." n53 Amongst the relatively recent emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the seriousness of TB has seemingly fallen
upon deaf ears in academic circles. Though many articles speak vehemently for and against the HIV-positive exclusion of immigrants from the United States, few discuss the
the industrial revolutions of England and peaked in the early 1800s. n54 The epidemic began to decline in North America from a peak in 1900 of 194 cases per 100,000 persons to
less than ten cases per 100,000 in 1982 - the decline was mostly due to improved socioeconomic conditions and the discovery of treatment drugs to fight the disease. n55 Oddly, in
1985 the incidence of TB began to increase up until 1992, when it again began to decline till hitting an [*366] all-time low of 8.7 cases per 100,000 in 1995. n56 The causes for
the excess cases in North America seen in the period between 1985 and 1993 were due to many factors including immigration, ineffective and underfunded public health services,
and the HIV epidemic. n57 Today the U.S. rate hovers somewhere below ten cases per 100,000, but it is as high as 300 per 100,000 in some areas and twenty-four per 100,000 in
inconsistent or unsuccessful treatment of the common TB disease. An incomplete course of medication may leave behind a new TB bacteria which is made resistant to the drugs
previously utilized. This new mutant strain of bacteria, MDR-TB, will multiply and can be spread by the infectious patient to other victims by air. MDR-TB is resistant to at least
two antibiotics, but strains have been observed which are resistant to as many as nine drugs. n65 MDR-TB outbreaks have been seen in regions all over the world from Russia
[*367] to South Africa, and from London to New York City. n66 A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1997 found MDR-TB in every one of the thirty-five
MDR-TB is a
highly dangerous disease, especially because it is airborne, and it is on the rise even
in the United States. In the thirty-nine states of the U.S. where reporting was collected, at least one MDR-TB case was found. n68 In twenty-seven percent of
countries it studied, and researchers estimate that MDR cases account for upwards of fourteen percent of the world's current TB case total. n67
the hospitals which had a case of MDR-TB, there were not proper facilities available to treat the mutant strain. n69 Even more problematic, New York City has reported a "w"
hundred times more than the price of treating a usual case of TB in the United States. n71 In developing nations, nearly all patients with recorded MDR-TB die because the cost is
developed nations fare little better where fifty percent of patients with the
resistant TB die due to the difficulty of treatment. n72
so prohibitive and
TB is already the second biggest killer in the world. Left unchecked it would go
global.
Middle East Online News 3/24/02 l/n
Washington - March 24 has been designated by the World Health Organization as World Tuberculosis Day. This very date, 120 years ago, Dr. Robert Koch - a German medical
researcher - announced to the European medical community that he had discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. His discovery was considered a medical breakthrough
developing countries. "Countries such as India, and China, Vietnam, the Philippines. There is a list of 23 high burdened countries in the world. It's from this set of 23 countries that
80 percent of the world's TB burden comes from," he says. Dr. Iadenmarco says that poverty and poor health conditions contribute significantly to the spread of tuberculosis in
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those countries. "Many of these 23 high burdened countries, for example, are lower or low income countries. So, they don't have adequate health infrastructure and so, therefore, it
is very difficult to coordinate, organize and provide the drugs for adequate TB control. A more social reason is that TB historically is a very stigmatizing disease. People don't want
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most likely explanation for why, in 1918, only 2 percent of those who contracted the flu
died. Having been exposed to other influenza viruses, most people had built up some
protection. People in isolated regions, including American Indian reservations and
Alaskan Inuit villages, had much higher case mortality presumably because they had
less exposure to influenza viruses. The 1889 pandemic also had a well-defined first wave
that was milder than succeeding waves. The 1957 and 1968 pandemics had waves, too,
though they were less well defined. In all four instances, the gap between the time the
virus was first recognized and a second, more dangerous wave swelled was about six
months. It will take a minimum of four months to produce vaccine in any volume,
possibly longer, and much longer than that to produce enough vaccine to protect most
Americans. The race has begun.
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and World II combined. Canadian health officials said Sunday they have confirmed that the H1N1 swine flu virus had, in at least one case, leaped back
into a herd of 200 pigs. That raised the possibility it could mutate again in pigs and move back into the human population. Chan told the Financial Times
that, given the potential scale of the possible threat, the World Health Organization did not overreact to the swine flu threat. While the number of new
cases hasn't grown as fast as expected, Chan said the disease could return in a few months in a much more lethal strain. She also said she would rather be
over-prepared than have to answer questions about why the World Health Organization didn't take sufficient action. The reaction of the U.S. government
headed by President Barack Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was measured, restrained and less tough than that of the 27-nation
European Union or of nations like China in closing cross-border traffic or imposing comprehensive screening. The Chinese government was horrified at
t swine flu could spread among its 1.3 billion people, almost 20 percent of
the human race. Its emergency measures, however, have infuriated the Mexican
government and led to a major diplomatic row between the two nations. Mexican travelers were quarantined in
the possibility tha
hotels, and the Mexican ambassador to China was not allowed to meet with one group he tried to visit. The anger of the Mexican government at the
Chinese measures, however, has obscured the real possibility that the global impact of swine flu has been limited precisely because of the swift measures
that were taken globally to contain it. The global swine flu crisis recalls the so-called millennium bug, which was supposed to crash computers around the
world as the machines' internal clocks turned over Jan. 1, 2000. That didn't happen, but some experts said that was because the precautions taken helped
prevent the problem. Some said there wasn't a problem to begin with. The whole controversy revolved around a negative proposition that couldn't be
history is filled
with little-known but horrifying examples of global pandemics from diseases like
Spanish flu, cholera, syphilis or bubonic plague that swept the world, killing
hundreds of millions of people, destroying civilizations and reshaping the
demographic patterns of the planet. In a modern world of unprecedented population
scale and social mobility, Chan's caution therefore appears completely justified. The
alternative is to risk a biological disaster that could eventually prove more
devastating than a thermonuclear war.
proved. Skeptics are already arguing that the global fever over swine flu should fall into the same category. However, human
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Illness - particularly malaria keeps Africa's people and their nations poor. Bad health locks people into poverty. Healthy
populations have better school attendance, higher incomes and more rapid economic
development. I anticipate that today we will agree an approach on rolling back malaria that also
applies whether we are tackling tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, maternal ill-health, tobacco-related ill-health
or other priority problems. It means: Information campaigns, to increase knowledge and understanding
and empower people to act to improve their health Access to essential drugs, vaccines, and other
commodities; Effective health services - close to the home; and A healthy environment - with clean
water and sanitation It certainly includes actions within communities, responsive to the needs of poor
people, supported by all sectors of society. We partners are working together to mobilise large
increases in resources for health, to reduce the prices of drugs and commodities, to minimise tariffs
and taxes on these goods, to support the discovery and development of effective drugs and vaccines,
and to back-up effective action at country level.. These are all concrete and target-oriented actions.
They bring results.
development. I sense a growing realisation among decision-makers that to reduce poverty we must improve health.
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widespread illness and death, while others don't? Like any organism entering a new
environment, the microbe population either must have within it some genetic variants that
are somewhat well-adapted to their new human host, or, once in the host, it has to throw
up new, better-adapted forms quickly through mutation or by scavenging genetic material
from other strains or species. That's probably why a large proportion of new human
diseases are RNA viruses, which mutate and scavenge more readily than DNA viruses,
bacteria or other pathogens. Chance mutations that improve an organism's ability to
thrive are extremely rare, even among viruses. This year, the world is watching and
waiting to find out if the H5N1 bird-flu strain is capable of producing mutants that can
spread directly from person to person. Two years ago, we were wondering if SARS
would beat the odds and go global. But it's not all up to the pathogen; as its hosts, we help
determine its success.
Disease-No Extinction
Global warming makes the impact inevitable
BBC 06/26/2002 [ New Study Says Climate Change Is Increasing Environmental
Disease
http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/zarticles/0626_climate_change_great_lakes.htm]
Outbreaks of human malaria, butterflies beset with parasites, disease-stricken corals, and
trees overgrown with fungus. That is the gloomy picture of tomorrow's planet painted by
scientists in the United States. After sifting through hundreds of scientific papers, they
warn that infectious diseases will rise as the world gets warmer. One consequence is that
entire species of animals could be wiped out. Human tropical diseases may spread
outside their normal geographical range, affecting more and more people. Endangered
wild animals such as lions and eagles could also succumb to infections. Political plea
The warning comes in a review published in the journal Science. According to the team
of US experts, it is the first broad look at the effect of climate change on various
pathogens of crops, plants, wild animals and humans. Dr Richard Ostfeld of the New
York-based Institute of Ecosystem Studies told BBC News Online: "Disease now has to
be considered another main player on the climate warming stage. "We need to be taking
climate warming much more seriously than we currently are. "By 'we' I refer to
international agencies but also the US Government." Plant stress Driving the predicted
rise in infectious diseases are changes in temperature, rainfall, and humidity, which give
bugs a boost. The theory is that pathogens would be able to spread over a wider range,
and increase their survival rate. Climate differences might also "stress" plants and
animals, making them more susceptible to infection, say the scientists, led by Professor
Drew Harvell of Cornell University.
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USAID has worked with the Departments of State, Agriculture, Health and Human
Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support national
planning, surveillance, response, containment, risk awareness, and pandemic
preparedness. These efforts have increased country-level capacities to respond to and
limit disease spread. Three years ago, USAID began working with the United Nations
and other partners to strengthen surveillance systems in Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and
other countries so that outbreaks of the disease would be quickly reported to health and
agriculture officials. As a result, detection times fell from 12 days in 2006 to five days in
2009. Shorter detection times means that outbreaks can be contained before the disease
has a chance to spread further. USAID trained 82,000 people in rapid response to poultry
outbreaks and human cases; and provided 700,000 sets of protective clothing to 84
countries to protect response workers. The Agency also stockpiled supplies for
disinfection in these countries. Increased surveillance helped identify how avian flu has
spread. In Indonesia, Egypt, and Bangladesh, the disease was likely circulating on
commercial farms and spread through the movement of poultry to bird markets and to
holding centers where birds are processed for shipment to urban areas. USAID provided
training and supplies in these countries and in Vietnam to clean and disinfect holding
centers and markets to reduce the amount of H5N1 virus. To minimize the chances of
human infections with H5N1, USAID supported public awareness campaignsincluding
distribution of posters at public events and TV and radio spots to inform people of the
risk posed by the disease and the importance of preventing and containing it. In addition
to activities intended to prevent the emergence of a pandemic, USAID has also been
working through its Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness Initiative with the United
Nations, international and national NGOs, and militaries to improve pandemic
preparedness in developing countries. About 96 percent of mortality due to an influenza
pandemic would be concentrated in developing countries, estimates say. Following its
success with H5N1 avian flu, USAID now intends to broaden its efforts to monitor and
respond to other zoonotic diseasesillnesses that are spread to humans from animals.
Initial focus areas will be the Congo Basin, Southeast Asia, and the Amazon, where there
is rich wildlife and increasing human contact and where many diseases have emerged in
the past. In fiscal year 2009, Congress appropriated new funding for USAID to build a
global early warning surveillance and response network for the next generation of
emerging pandemic threats.