Pandemics Flashcards
Learning Objectives
- Understanding:
- The nature of pandemics
- Causes of pandemics
- Methods of controlling pandemics
- Gaining awareness of The historical and current impact of pandemics on human populations
What’s the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic?
- Epidemic: The occurrence in a defined region of cases of a disease in the human population in excess of normal expected numbers
- Pandemic: An epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people
Why do pandemics occur?
- Emergence / introduction of a new disease capable of infecting humans
- Or the Re-emergence of a disease not seen in human populations for many years Leading to a serious illness that is readily transmissible & sustainable in the human population
- Mechanisms to allow easy and sustainable spread in human population
- Wholly susceptible population
How is a Pandemic declared?
- WHO uses the conditions on the previous slide to decide whether to declare a pandemic.
- Declaration of a pandemic has largely been replaced by a declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern – PHEIC
Why are pandemics potentially damaging to societies in terms of health impacts?
- High morbidity: Difficult to treat patients adequately! Medical services/facilities overwhelmed. Staff exhaustion/morale, Shortages of medicines etc, Shortages of PPE, Shortages of beds. Rehabilitation of cases. Mental health
- High mortality: May be difficult to dispose of the dead, Legal issues, Social/personal impact
- Long term health concerns: Failure/delay in treating other health problems, Increased morbidity/mortality from untreated conditions. Long term impact of infection on individuals. Impact on health care staff
Why are pandemics potentially damaging to societies in terms of social and economic impacts? (PART 1)
Impact on the workforce:
- Immediate – reduction in available workforce, lockdowns, lost income.
- Long term – loss of jobs, loss of skills, lost income.
- Impact on physical and mental health
Impact on infrastructure
- Transport (food, fuel distribution)
- Power
- Water/waste
- Security/law & order/justice services
Why are pandemics potentially damaging to societies in terms of social and economic impacts? (PART 2)
Economic damage
- Damage to national/international trade
- Damage to travel/transport industries/tourism
- Business & store closures/job losses/furloughs/unemployment
Social impact
- Impact of control measures (e.g. Lockdowns)
- Damage to education
- Damage to social structures
- Fake news/conspiracies/blaming external groups
- Social unrest
- [Long term social change]
How do we minimise the immediate effects of a pandemic?
- Try to reduce the number of cases
- Delay the peak number of cases
- Reduce the height peak number of infections
- Spreas the cases over a longer period of time
How do we control a pandemic?
Requires:
- A very high level of national & international collaboration in all relevant fields
- Active & effective epidemiological, surveillance & public health systems
- High grade medical care & facilities
- Collaborative research: understanding organisms
- Social responsibility by national populations: Preventing social breakdown
- Good and unimpreded flows of accurate information within & between nations neutralising rumours
- Political will
What are some health and public health interventions that humans can take?
- Epidemiological investigation & surveillance
- Detection, isolation & treatment of cases & quarantine of contacts: effective surveillance system, active & effective test & trace system
- Social distancing: Minimize disease transmission, morbidity & mortality by reducing contact between individuals
- Reduce demands on medical/health-care services: Encourage home nursing, Minimise use of medical facilities by those who can be cared for at home. Delay treatment for other non urgent conditions
What is the difference between quarantine & isolation?
- These are control & preventive measures. They are a legacy of the many pandemics over the centuries.
- Quarantine: restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a disease, to prevent the spread of the disease to the healthy
- Isolation: separate persons ill with a communicable disease from those who are healthy
Provide a brief history of how quarantine was used in the legacy of the Black Death
- From a Venetian dialect form of the Italian quaranta giorni, - “40 days”
- In 1377, the Rector of the port of Ragusa, (Dubrovnik in Croatia) officially imposed the “trentina” a 30-day isolation period for ships & people.
- Detention of forty days (quarantina) instituted by the city of Marseille in 1383 & became the standard period of quarantine
- 1896 – quarantine replaced by port health inspection
What is the R0 / Rt(Re) concepts?
- R0 (Basic reproduction number), is the expected number of cases directly generated by one case in a population where all individuals are susceptible to infection
• Rt or Re (Effective reproduction number) is the number of cases generated in the current state of a population, which does not have to be the uninfected state.
What happens if these values are below 1?
- The disease will decline. This can be achieved by:
- Increasing Herd immunity: Allow infection to run unchecked/with some limits, Vaccination
- Physical intervention: Respiratory system protection, Hygiene measures, Lockdowns, Test & trace, Isolation/quarantine of cases/contacts
What do masks do?
Masks do 2 things:
- Source protection: Reduced virus transmission from the wearer
- Wearer protection: Reduced rate of infection of the wearer
- WHO advice: Wear a fabric mask unless you’re in a particular risk group
