The TED talk addressed the issue of infectious disease and the ways in which disease is spread using the examples of cholera and malaria. The speaker Paul Ewald discussed the ways in which humans may have the ability to reduce their exposure and spread of infectious disease through applying the theory of evolution by natural selection. This spread of disease poses a threat to humans as the bacteria that cause the disease evolves with humans and become resistant to the medical interventions. The speaker addressed some key issues and posed some important solutions towards the betterment of human lives. The field of biological science studies when it comes to human’s works towards understanding the evolution of humans and the threats to the survival of our species. Understanding the evolution of disease is important in creating ways to protect humans against these diseases and properly treating those infected. The 21st century has been seen some successful cases in which science has been successful in the irradiated disease through the use of research and development of antibiotics but there are still diseases that plague countries especially in the developing world. Lack of information in regards to diseases and the effects of disease on humans can be critical to human survival if diseases evolve beyond our control which can lead to a pandemic.
The issue presented in the topic is finding the right way to tackle the spread and threat of disease, one side handles the issue through looking at the human point of view while the other looks at the issue from the point of view of the organism. Paul Ewald tackles the issue from the side that is taking the organism’s point of view and developing ways to fight the organisms. In the talk ...
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.... Just like with the case of AIDs reduction happens after those exposed are provided with information of reducing their exposure. Reducing transmission is as easy as teaching children to wash their hands and where to use the bathroom which cost way less than an antibiotic treatment (Esrey et al. 1985) . The end goal of research on infectious disease is to find a way to protect humans against the harmful effects so providing people with ways to reduce their exposure is crucial. One of the challenges for humans in the 21st century is fighting infectious diseases as our knowledge of medical treatments increase there is an increase in drug resistant diseases evolving. Research in the department of biological sciences involving germ domestication may be one solution on control the evolution of germs to our advantage improving the lives and survival of the human race.
3.Stevenson, J. (2004, Sept.). Impact of Infectious Diseases on Development of Human Societies. MBI. July 18, 2005:
Dr. Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince’s book, Survival of the Sickest, points out the fact that diseases do not always need to be cured infact beneficial mutations is how we evolve. Although the book mainly discusses how diseases evolve humans, Moalem and Prince do discuss how we, humans shape diseases. By the simple acts of getting and giving mosquito netting, one forces the malaria virus to find a new perhaps less malicious path to survival and reproduction one that may not cure the malaria virus but may make not fatal, similar to the common
McNeil suggests, there are still epidemics out there which have not developed human to human status yet. For example, AIDS is identified in 1981, which is after the publication of Plagues and Peoples. Because of AIDS relevancy to this book, McNeil writes a Preface in 1997 including his thoughts on the epidemic. Humans only thought that scientific medicine "had finally won decisive victory over disease germs" (9). With the discovery of the AIDS virus a social change occurred in American and similar societies.
Modern medicine has proved that the best way to prevent the contraction of a disease for humans is to inject a tolerable amount of the virus into the host and let the individual's immune system build a defense capable of withstanding future invasions of the same strand. The small pox vaccination, for example, has eliminated the disease from almost every nation on Earth.
...n Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 19 Feb 2012.
Throughout history there have been very dangerous diseases that have been able to single handedly wipe out entire civilizations because there was nothing that we could do about it. Most of the time was because we did not quite understand what was actually happening. But thanks to all of the scientific advancements humans are able to live many more times than previous years. But that doesn’t meant that every human is healthy enough. This means that although we are less prone to die from some infectious diseases, we now have other risk for example not keeping up with a healthy diet is one of the many reasons why there are so many premature deaths. Now if you don’t get treated right away it can get worst the longer you get and sometimes it can also be fatal. One of those is Meningitis which is something very serious that if it doesn’t get treated it can lead to very serious complications in the long run or even death depending on the case. The reason why I chose this one was because when I was in high school I suffered from some...
The inevitable, but unpredictable, appearance of new infectious diseases has been recognized for millennia, well before the discovery of causative infectious agents. The ease of world travel and increased global independence has added layers of complexity to containing these infectious diseases that affect not only the health but the economic stability of societies (Morens et al., 2013).
For centuries, well before the basic notions of infectious diseases were understood, humans have realized that climate changes effect epidemic diseases (Patz et al.). The Roman aristocracy retreated to the hills each summer to avoid malaria and the South Asians learned that early in the summer, heavily curried foods were less likely to cause diarrheal diseases (Patz et al.). Patz et al. stated that there have been three distinct transition periods that changed the human to microbe relationship. Those three transition periods are: 1) Early human settlements enabling enzootic infective species to enter the human population, 2) Early Eurasion civilizations swapped dominant infections by military and commercial contact, and lastly, 3) European expansionism over the past five centuries caused the spread of often lethal infectious diseases. They also state that we could be in the fourth transition, with climate change having a wide range of impacts on the occurrence of infectious diseases in human populations.
Secretory Diarrhea (Cholera) Abstract: Cholera is an acute, bacterial infection of the small intestine caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacteria. The Vibrio cholerae bacterium, after attacking the human intestine, is responsible for devastating diarrhea resulting in severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. The key cause of this is the ADP ribosylation of the human signaling protein Gsα, catalyzed by the cholera toxin, which produces a biochemical cascade.
The human population has a high susceptibility to the contraction of new diseases and outbreaks of these diseases are of high risk. Diseases in recent times that have broken out into the human population are the H7N9 flu strain and SARS. Despite the risk, outbreaks like H7N9 and SARS have been controlled due to epidemiology and other disease control methods. Outbreaks of disease are not uncommon to the human population as they move to new areas around the world with foreign diseases that the native residents would have developed a resistance to.
Ebola, a major threat to today's society, is threatening all parts of today's culture. In this paper one will be presented with six major points of analyses. The first an outbreak timeline, the next three are a basic overview of the deadly virus. In the fifth, one will be presented with what things are being blamed for these violent outbreaks. And in the sixth and final point one will be shown what is being done to better the situation.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium Vibrio cholera (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/cholera/general/). Number of researches has been conducted and it has concluded that thousands of people are infected around the world. For more than two centuries, cholera has evaded some of the top scientist and still remains a threat to the world populations. A major cholera epidemic began in India in 1817, from India the disease spread to Russia, appearing at rapid speed and crossing all across the continent. Cholera is believed to originate in 1817 at the Ganges River in India and then later spread to other areas and regions due to poor removal of water mainly from British ships.
In the 1960s, doctors in the United States predicted that infectious diseases were in decline. US surgeon Dr. William H. Stewart told the nation that it had already seen most of the frontiers in the field of contagious disease. Epidemiology seemed destined to become a scientific backwater (Karlen 1995, 3). Although people thought that this particular field was gradually dying, it wasn’t. A lot more of it was destined to come. By the late 1980s, it became clear that people’s initial belief of infectious diseases declining needed to be qualified, as a host of new diseases emerged to infect human beings (Smallman & Brown, 2011).With the current trends, the epidemics and pandemics we have faced have created a very chaotic and unreliable future for mankind. As of today, it has really been difficult to prevent global epidemics and pandemics. Although the cases may be different from one state to another, the challenges we all face are all interconnected in this globalized world.
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it,” Albert Einstein spoke these incredibly true words years ago. Epidemiologists combat illnesses that the majority of the population readily ignore. The treatment of people afflicted with life-threatening diseases has gradually evolved because of the dutiful research of epidemiologists.
The scientific field will be defined here as all the components within the practise of biological control as well as the sub-disciplines that may affect the practise although these sub-disciplines (eg. Legislation) will not be focused on to the same degree. Components of the scientific discipline such as general differences, successes and failures, biological techniques and innovations, agent selection, host specificity testing,...