INFECTIOUS DISEASES - UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

IMPACT OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

? 14th century ? 1831 ? 1854-56

? 1899-1902

- Europe - plague kills 20-45% of the world's population

- Cairo - 13% of population succumbs to cholera

- Crimean war ? deaths due to

dysentery were 10 times higher than deaths due to casualties

- Boer War ? deaths due to dysentery were 5 times higher than deaths due to casualties

Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. The dragons are all dead and the lance grows rusty in the chimney corner . . . About the only sporting proposition that remains unimpaired by the relentless domestication

of a once free-living human species is the war against those ferocious little fellow creatures, which lurk in the dark corners and stalk us in the bodies of rats, mice and all kinds of domestic animals; which fly and crawl with the insects, and waylay us in our

food and drink and even in our love.

- (Hans Zinsser,1934 quoted in Murphy 1994)

? "One can think of the middle of the 20th century as the end of one of the most important social revolutions in history, the virtual elimination of the infectious diseases as a significant factor in social life"

Sir Macfarland Burnet

LA Times, 14 August 2012

Ongoing West Nile Outbreak Being Called The Largest Ever In The US

As of August 22, CDC is reporting 1,118 cases of West Nile virus infections in 38 states with 41 deaths. It is the largest West Nile virus outbreak to occur in the US since first reported in 1999. Lyle Petersen, CDC's vector-borne disease specialist, told the media that the peak usually occurs in mid-August and that he expects many more cases as it takes a couple of weeks for people to develop illness. The cause for the record number of cases this year is unknown but Petersen speculated that unusually warm weather conditions could have made it easier for transmission to humans to occur. Texas has been at the epicenter of the epidemic with approximately half of the cases (586) and half of the deaths (21). To protect themselves, Americans are being urged to "fight the bite" by using mosquito repellent with DEET, dressing in long pants and sleeves, being extra careful at dusk and dawn, and draining any standing water around their premises.

Epidemiology News Briefs - August 23, 2012

LA Times, 13 August 2012

LA Times, Sept 2012

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