Causes And Effects Of Pandemics

A pandemic is defined as a disease prevalent over a whole country or the world (Segall, 2007). Pandemics are incommodious, hindering countries greatly. Those with poor economies, or poor health care systems struggle to contain pandemics, as they do not have the resources, training, or knowledge necessary to treat infected patients without becoming infected and spreading the disease or virus. HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and the bubonic plague are prime examples of how devastating a pandemic can be to the human population. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which if left untreated, can lead to AIDS, also known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS.gov, 2014). As one might infer from the name, HIV can only infect humans. It attacks the CD4 cells, also know as T cells, a type of white blood cell that alerts the immune system when an infection or disease is present. HIV seizes control of a CD4 cell and uses it to multiply itself, then spread throughout the body (Appendix A). HIV can remain hidden in the body for years, as it hijacks the CD4 cells and stops them from alerting the immune system that an infection is present. There are three stages of HIV, acute infection, clinical latency, and AIDS …show more content…
They are named after the places they were discovered in, and they are called Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-cote d 'Ivoire, Ebola-Reston, and Ebola-Bundibugyo (“Brief General”, 2013). The current outbreak is the Ebola-Zaire strain, the deadliest of all five strains. It is also larger than all of the previous outbreaks combined. Ebola-Zaire was one of the first two strains discovered in 1976 in Yambuku, Zaire, Africa. All of the strains cause hemorrhagic fever (Appendix E), which weakens the body’s blood vessels and affects the organs (WHO, 2014). No cure has been found, but due to the rising death toll researchers are working hard to develop