What Ended the Plague? What Can We Learn About Pandemics?

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來自 The Pennsylvania State University 的課程

流行病：传染病动力学

577 個評分

The Pennsylvania State University

流行病：传染病动力学

577 個評分

Not so long ago, it was almost guaranteed that you would die of an infectious disease. In fact, had you been born just 150 years ago, your chances of dying of an infectious disease before you've reached the tender age of 5 would have been extremely high. Since then, science has come a long way in understanding infectious diseases - what they are, how they spread, and how they can be prevented. But diseases like HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, or the flu are still major killers worldwide, and novel emerging diseases are a constant threat to public health. In addition, the bugs are evolving. Antibiotics, our most potent weapon against bacterial infections, are losing their power because the bacteria are becoming resistant. In this course, we'll explore the major themes of infectious diseases dynamics. After we’ve covered the basics, we'll be looking at the dynamics of the flu, and why we're worried about flu pandemics. We'll be looking at the dynamics of childhood diseases such as measles and whooping cough, which were once considered almost eradicated, but are now making a comeback. We'll explore Malaria, and use it as a case study of the evolution of drug resistance. We'll even be looking at social networks - how diseases can spread from you to your friends to your friends' friends, and so on. And of course we’ll be talking about vaccination too. We’ll also be talking about how mobile phones, social media and crowdsourcing are revolutionizing disease surveillance, giving rise to a new field of digital epidemiology. And yes, we will be talking about Zombies - not human zombies, but zombie ants whose brains are hijacked by an infectious fungus. We're looking forward to having you join us for an exciting course!

從本節課中

Ask Us Anything Videos

The videos accessible in this module are responses to questions that have been posed in previous sessions of this course. We invite you to look around here as an additional resource to answer questions you might have yourself or explore topics that pique your interest.

Introductions5:51

What Does It Mean to Be Infectious?4:48

What is the Impact of Prior Infections on Susceptibility to New Pathogens?5:19

What Ended the Plague? What Can We Learn About Pandemics?5:29

Can Behavior Contribute to Susceptibility?6:13

與講師見面

Dr. Ottar N. Bjornstad
Professor of Entomology and Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Rachel A. Smith
Associate Professor
Department of Communication Arts & Sciences and Human Development & Family Studies
Dr. Mary L. Poss
Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. David P. Hughes
Assistant Professor of Entomology and Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Peter Hudson
Willaman Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Matthew Ferrari
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Andrew Read
Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences, and Professor of Entomology
Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics
Dr. Marcel Salathé
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology

Great, so we, one of the really forums that we had in online was, was

asking questions about the plague, which, I can't presume what the interest was.

But I imagine that, that, that in my mind it's related to the,

to the large-scale global epidemic we're now seeing over there.

Fears of a global epidemic coming out coming out of our staff there with Ebola.

And the plague is, is probably the biggest global, pandemic that,

that most people have heard of and have been familiar with in the past.

And so some of the questions that come out of the, forum are,

where did the plague come from?

How did it end?

What was the, what caused the end of that epidemic?

And what can we learn about the end of that epidemic that might

inform how future pandemics might be, controller might end on their own.

>> So, we don't know exactly where the plague came from.

We know where it first entered Europe.

And if you don't know about the plague, it's,

it's this terrible disease which spread across Europe in the 1300s and 1400s.

And right up until the 1650s.

And by estimations, one-third of all Europe.

Died because of this disease.

In some places it was as much as 60% or 70%, that's really great power to our

cause from, England to show that so many people died.

We know it entered Europe in Genoa, and then very rapidly spread.

And the suspicion is it came from, the Far East and, it's a disease which

is also spread by fleas or rats, so it's a complicated disease transmission.

And it's not necessarily the case that it just went away.

We can still have plague in some locations, and, some studies here in

the U.S. look at plague in prairie dog systems, that Peter knows a lot about.

So, in that case, it didn't disappear, it's still, problem, but

the actual pandemic did pass over.

But it took quite a long time,

a couple of hundred years, of successive large events before it all went away.

Why did it go away?

Well people had a, had a greater insight into, control.

So we know from,

a lot of really good historical records in Florence and, try Italy, about how the,

how to, the municipalities got together, and mandated quarantine events.

Quarantine, is a word that comes from the Italian, [FOREIGN], which is 40 days.

So, individuals were able to put into place [CROSSTALK] aspects of

control of disease.

So we, we, we overcame that, but it took a lot of thinking on the fly.

>> Yeah.

And actually, I think, and, and

an important point in the case study of plague was that this was at

a time before there was a pharmaceutical solution to that, right?

We, we were, a lot of the concern with, Ebola and SARS and

other emerging diseases now is, how can we rapidly develop the appropriate drugs.

The appropriate treatments for that.

But I think the example in play suggests that, that non-pharmaceutical controls and

cultural and behavioral controls can be really very important, in stemming the,

in stemming this transmission.

>> So when I used to walk to school in Britain everyday.

Had to walk past the plague, houses.

>> [CROSSTALK] Was it uphill both, uphill both ways?

[LAUGH].

>> And there were, [CROSSTALK] there were these,

there were these plague houses all throughout the British countryside.

>> Yeah. >> Where these people were.

>> Mm. >> Actually sent.

>> Mm. >> But the impact,

on countries like Italy was phenomenal.

It took us like what was it 600 >> Right.

>> Years to recover!

>> Yeah. >> There were basically,

most people were dead!

>> Yes, yeah.

>> It was a huge impact.

>> [INAUDIBLE]. >> It seems to me that one of

the interesting things about the plague case and some of what's coming out of

west Africa at the moment is the fundamental knowledge of the biology.

How the transmission is working.

How the whole process is going.

That makes a huge difference to what you do.

And you know, plague times, it was all a mystery.

It was all this strange thinking about what was going on, nobody understood it.

Till we have the germ theory of infectious disease, it's very, very hard,

to control these things.

People used to think malaria came off the,

some smell of the swamps and, cholera was a nasty vegetative process.

You now, it's weird things and when you understand things, you control the And

you see in west Africa now, that were the, where the understanding does not exist,

then there is awful problems controlling it.

>> But there's a lot of similarity between plague.

And the Ebola outbreak at the moment.

Because both of them are highly spatial.

So they would get, come into a town.

There would be a burning here, there would be an outbreak of the disease, and

then it would flip like that, a spark from a fire to another town.

And it would set it off again.

And that's exactly what's happening with Ebola.

because people are rushing back to their villages.

Places to get their health support from their family.

That's setting up >> It's very interesting though

in the absence of the information that we have both the how to get the theme but

also just the general germ theory.

>> Yeah.

>> Quarantine is what works the best.

>> [LAUGH] So I, I, they had a plan for that.

So, so even in Roman Empire, we knew that malaria,

which is again an Italian word for bad air, we knew what was causing the swamps.

And Vitruvius, the Roman architect, built swamps into various pla,

built barracks in various places to avoid the presence of malaria.

Al Rashid, an architect in, in Bagdad used to nail rotting meat on, on planks of wood

to decide where he would best situate a hospital in Bagdad, eighth century Bagdad.

So, we did have inklings of it, even though, of course, germ theory

did come around, and, and then get to

>> Well, and I still think the most fundamental.

Environmental advances are probably helping advance malaria,

It's figuring out there was a mosquito boom.

>> Hm. >> Yeah.

>> More than the drugs,

more than anything else.

The mosquito borne thing just needs sampling

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