Public Health and Epidemiology
Which Single Achievement in Epidemiology is of Particular Interest to You?
The single achievement that is of a particular interest to me is eradication of small pox in many countries as it has greatly contributed to the well-being of millions of people in the world. In the 1790s, a research was done that indicated that cowpox infection had an ability to offer protection against smallpox (Lorion, 2006). An understanding of the epidemiology of smallpox is a central point that has enabled eradication of the disease.
Briefly Describe that Achievement in Epidemiology. In What Era Did this Achievement Occur?
Smallpox is a lethal disease that is caused by Variola virus, which is classified under orthopoxvirus family (Norn, 2011). Small pox was one of the most feared diseases in the world until it was eradicated by a joint global vaccination program that was led by the World Health Organization. Eradication of this disease was a major global achievement where smallpox disease was officially declared eradicated in the year 1979. The last known case of small pox was recorded in Somalia in the year 1977. The other case of small pox that was recorded in 1978 in Birmingham city was as a result of laboratory accident (Surjan, 2009). One person was killed in the incidence and a limited outbreak of the disease was recorded.
Briefly Describe One Important Tool that Can Be Used to Measure its Occurrence in a Population
Epidemiological surveillance is one important tool that can be used to measure the occurrence of smallpox in the population (Lee, 2002). Surveillance should in this case incorporate issues of incidence and prevalence. Statistical analysis of the data that is collected in the survey helps indicate the...
... middle of paper ...
...s and prevalence of smallpox, this extensive research on smallpox gave a platform through which epidemiologist together with scientists devised some ways of eradicating the disease. A research on smallpox enabled identification of cowpox infection as one of the methods of protecting an individual against the small pox infection (Lorion, 2006).
References
Barnard, B. (2005). Outbreak: Plagues that changed history. New York: Crown Publishers.
Lee, E. (2002). A small-pox experience in California. February 1912. The American Journal of Nursing, 102, 2, 5-7.
Lorion, D. (2006). Risk assessment for patients with Smallpox. Journal of Health Sciences, 108, 10, 812-826.
Norn, A. 2011). The outbreak of small-pox in the world. California: California University press.
Surjan, G. (2009). The cultural history of medical classifications. Oxford: Oxford University
This summer we had an opportunity to dive into the world of bioweapons, through Richard Preston’s novel The Demon in the Freezer. His book explored the colorful world of smallpox and its use as a biological weapon. Earlier this week we were graced with this authors present for an ACES event. He discussed some of the found topics in his book such as animal testing, what small pox is, and even its eradication. One of the great things we had the chance of vocalizing were our many opinions on the gloom associated with this intriguing disease.
18) Powell, Alvin. "The Beginning of the End of Smallpox."news.harvard.edu. N.p.. Web. 13 Mar 2014. .
“Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox has existed and by you extirpated”. This quote comes from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Jenner, he founder of the smallpox vaccine. It would only be 100 years later that Jefferson would see his dream fulfilled, but not without struggle. In House on Fire, author William H. Foege shares his first hand view of the lengths that society needed to go through to rid the world of the disease that had plagued it for so long. The story of the fight against smallpox extends long before our efforts for global eradication and is a representation of how society deals with widespread disease. House on
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston is an intriguing book that discusses the anthrax terrorist attacks after 9/11 and how smallpox might become a future bioterrorist threat to the world. The book provides a brief history of the smallpox disease including details of an outbreak in Germany in 1970. The disease was eradicated in 1979 due to the World Health Organization’s aggressive vaccine program. After the virus was no longer a treat the World Health Organization discontinued recommending the smallpox vaccination. In conjunction, inventory of the vaccine was decreased to save money. The virus was locked up in two labs, one in the United States and one in Russia. However, some feel the smallpox virus exists elsewhere. Dr. Peter Jahrling and a team of scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland became concerned terrorists had access to the smallpox virus and planed to alter the strain to become more resistant. These doctors conducted smallpox experiments to discover more effective vaccines in case the virus were released. Preparedness for a major epidemic is discussed as well as the ease with which smallpox can be bioengineered.
In closing, the variola virus affected a great amount in that era including, military strategy, trade, and native populations. Elizabeth A. Fenn’s book Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 sheds light on a significant aspect of that era that had not been given proper credence beforehand. She also illuminated the effect of smallpox when it came to race and social status. With regard to race, smallpox decimated much of the non European populations partly because of their lack of an innate immunity to that virus and Europeans lack of regard for those of a different race. Fenn’s argument on social status showed how the poorer strata’s of society suffered more severely from the variola virus because of their lack of finances to get inoculated; thus, the poor often suffered a worse strain of the virus which often lead to death.
A different perspective on a smallpox epidemic during the French and Indian War appears in Andrew J. Blackbird's History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan. Blackbird, Chief Mack-e-te-be-nessy, was a member of a distinguished Ottawa family from the northwest shore of the Michigan lower peninsula. He wrote his History late in life, after a long career in education, politics, and public service.
Edward Jenner, “the father of immunology”, was born on May 17, 1749. He was one of nine siblings and he was treated for smallpox for a very long period of his childhood. I predict that his treatment to small pox as an infant encouraged his work into creating the vaccine for smallpox itself. It is said that his work “saved more lives than the work of any other human”. He found the similarities of cowpox and smallpox, and then analyzed his experiments to conclude that previous cowpox patients had immunization to smallpox.
There is no doubt that these events have improved and advanced the science of medicine as a whole and that lives have been improved and saved through the availability of healthcare within the system that has been created. The introduction and availability of antibiotics alone has restored to good health countless individuals who in the century before would have certainly died from bacterial infection.
... risk of developing the disease. It was observed that those who had been infected with the clinically similar but less severe cowpox disease by milking cows were also immune to smallpox. This observation led Edward Jenner to his first ever vaccination technique. He inserted the cowpox virus obtained from the scabs of a woman into a boy, and then when the boy was inoculated some time later, he proved immune to smallpox (Fenner). It is impossible to contract smallpox from this inoculation of the less virulent related virus and allowed individuals a way to protect themselves without risk. Later, the smallpox vaccination was adapted by using a different live virus, the vaccinia virus which is more similar to variola than cowpox and therefore provides better cross-immunity. As the practice of vaccination gained popularity, it had a significant impact on life expectancy.
The perspective the author gives to this book is a unique. Smallpox according to most histories does not play the role of a major character, but a minor part. In my opinion smallpox was a major factor during the Revolutionary War, and Feen focuses on several key areas which allows us to see just how bad this epidemic was and the grip it had not only on the soldiers, but the colonist as well.
In order to understand the history of smallpox one first has to understand how diseases like it evolve. Much like other species, diseases that survive in the long run are the microbes that most effectively reproduce and are able to find suitable places to live. For a microbe to effectively reproduce, it must "be defined mathematically as the number of new infected per each original patient." This number will largely depend on how long each victim is able to spread the virus to other victims (Diamond, 198).
By preserving the virus, Boylston personally inoculated 247 people in 1721 and 1722 to prevent transmission. However, from there only six people died, and Boylston was the first American surgeon to inoculate his patients personally. The author portrays the background data Boylston used to examine the inoculation practice on different age and gender of persons to treat his patients from previous experiments. The inoculation method provided higher level of immunity in preventing smallpox infection. The prevention of smallpox is through inducing antibodies through vaccines which last longer for a person taking it.
Smallpox is a serious and sometimes fatal disease that is cause by a Variola virus, a member of the orthopox virus family, the variola virus also known as the variola major is the most common severe clinical form of smallpox that is known to give an extensive rash and high fever. The forms of this disease consist of 30 % fatality rate (CDC, 2003: smallpox). There are known to be four types of variola major of small pox, from the very common one to the fatal. These four types are ordinary, which is the very common one and create a discrete rash, modified (mild) and sometimes can be confused with chickenpox, Flat and Hemorrhagic which is rare and very severe to the human population which cause internal bleeding in the skin, unlike the other types of variola major, this type tend to make people have a smooth skin and mainly happens to adult. Another clinical form of smallpox is variola minor, less common and less severe with only 1% of historical death (CDC, 2003: smallpox). The word pox in smallpox...
In the 1630s, another small pox epidemic broke out in what is modern day Massachusetts. After this epidemic, small pox would spread rapidly all across the New World killing off almost 90% of the Native peoples. It is said that this disease killed so many so rapidly that no one had the strength to even bury the dead. The Natives had such weak immune systems that sometimes the small pox