The history of many diseases including plague is thousands of years old. There is still a clear history of the Black Death or its aftermath. But according to some researchers, the Byzantine Empire also had an outbreak of contagious disease on this earth thousands of years ago. European researchers searched for the source of the epidemic and at various times harmed South and East Asians, including the Middle East. In fact, the responsibility of the Mediterranean countries is no less than that of the Asians.
Although the epidemic immediately killed millions of people, the people themselves have gradually found a way to deal with it. Black Death has taught people medical systems such as quarantine and social distance. But the greatest success of medical science in dealing with the epidemic came through the invention of a vaccine. A review of the coronavirus from the plague of Justinian to the present day shows that social distance alone could not completely eradicate epidemic diseases; Rather, it spread the death march through the world.
Vaccine; Image Source: Getty Image / BBC
Many researchers call the vaccine a blessing for humankind. There are also logical reasons behind this. Maybe if the vaccine hadn't been invented, smallpox and plague would have halved the world's population by now. Just as the plague of Justinian killed about 30 to 50 million people, which was about half the world's population at the time. It was transmitted to Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in about 541 AD.
The vaccine has helped people to live safely for generations. Many diseases have been completely eradicated from the world due to antidotes, which is one of the achievements of medical science. Today we are going to talk about some of the diseases that people have forgotten to name for the sake of vaccines.
Smallpox
In 1970, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been completely eradicated from the world. The disease was eradicated from the face of the earth through a long-term study of researchers. Although it has done little damage for hundreds of years. In the 180's or earlier, 30 percent of smallpox patients died. At that time, due to the regular travel of European citizens, this deadly disease reached the two continents of America. The number of indigenous peoples in the United States and Mexico has dropped from 10 million to 1 million due to the disease alone. The people of that region had never been acquainted with such a disease before.
The English physician Edward Jenner did a long research to save mankind from smallpox. In 1896 he announced the invention of the smallpox vaccine. Originally, it was the first antidote to any epidemic in the history of mankind. Dr. Jenner named the vaccine 'Kaufox'. After conducting multiple tests on the animal, he tested the vaccine on an eight-year-old boy. After the vaccine was administered to the boy's body, when Dr. Jenner saw that the boy was not being infected with smallpox, he realized that the vaccine was effective.
Dr. Jenner is vaccinating an eight-year-old boy against smallpox; Image Source: NY times
Although the results may not be as good as they are today, Dr. Jenner's success at the time was huge. Among the Europeans, Spain was the first to introduce smallpox vaccine. The antidote reached the entire Spanish Empire. After Spain, the British also officially approved the smallpox vaccine. Then, in the 1850s, Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to introduce the smallpox vaccine. However, no global action was taken in 1989 to eradicate smallpox. After the Second World War, the United Nations and the leading countries took up the task of eradicating it globally and succeeded.
Rabies or rabies
The history of this disease is quite old. Researchers believe that it has been around the world since 2000 BC. The first case of rabies was reported in Boston, USA in 18 AD The disease is transmitted from animal to human body mainly due to bites or injuries of different animals. From the beginning of the twentieth century, the disease spread across the Americas to Europe, Africa and Asia. The incidence of rabies in the United States has increased significantly since World War II. At that time, billboards were hung by the state government as a precaution while moving in different areas.
Rabies warnings on the streets of Chicago; Image Source: Francis Miller / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images
However, researchers did not take long to discover a cure for the disease. Initially, vaccines were introduced to infected people, but later new methods were introduced. Over time, people tend to keep different species of animals in their homes. And so, not only in the human body, but in all the animals kept at home, the method of giving antidote to rabies was introduced. However, the system of giving antidotes to the human body is still going on. Although Americans are most at risk, the disease is still rampant in many parts of Africa and Asia. In 2015 alone, more than 16,000 people died from the disease. Therefore, it is very important to make the vaccine readily available in the least developed countries.
Polio
We are all more or less aware of this disease. Because, everyone has taken polio vaccine since childhood. At present, the governments of almost all countries, including the World Health Organization, are distributing free vaccines against the disease. But even a few decades ago, the world was completely inattentive to polio. However, researchers believe that the disease existed thousands of years ago. The disease was reported in Egypt in 1,400 BC. However, in the nineteenth century, the number of polio patients in different countries of the world continued to increase. But then medical science did not care about it at all.
With polio, any part of the body can lose its function permanently. Statistics show that Americans have suffered the most from polio in the last century. In the 1940's, about 35,000 Americans became infected with polio. According to 1952 statistics, there were 57,79 polio cases in the country, of which 3,145 died.
Jonas Edward Salk; Image Source: Keystone Features / Getty Images
Probably no other country in the world at that time except the United States was so active in combating polio. That's why the first polio vaccine was invented by the American researcher Jonas Edward Salk. In 1954, he experimentally administered the vaccine to children. At that time, 8,24,982 children were vaccinated. Reviewing the results, it is seen that the effectiveness of the vaccine discovered by Jonas Salk is 80-90 percent. His vaccine ushered in a new era for Americans. No more polio cases have been reported in the country since 1989. However, as seen in 2016, polio has not yet been eradicated from the world. Researchers believe that there are still polio patients in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Influenza
When the coronavirus infection started, many were talking about whether it was fatal from the flu. After a long year, we all more or less understand how much damage the coronavirus has done. However, history has shown that influenza or flu caused the most damage in 1917-19. The Spanish flu has killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including in Europe and the Americas. The death toll is even higher. Also, one-third of the world's population was infected with the Spanish flu at the time.
Scene of disinfectant application; Image Source: HF Davis / Topical Press Agency / Getty Images
And researchers have not been able to completely eradicate this influenza from the earth. However, it has been suppressed through the application of antidotes. Otherwise, the disease could take the form of an epidemic once every decade. In the 1940s, a team of researchers led by Thomas Francis Jr. and Jonas Salk began research on the flu vaccine at the University of Michigan. The vaccine they discovered in 1945 was approved for members of the US military. The following year it was also supplied to the general public. However, soon after the establishment of the World Health Organization, new laboratories were built to prevent influenza. In 1947, a new department for higher studies on influenza was opened at the National Pharmaceutical Research Center in England, London.
Although influenza did not become extinct like other diseases, it did prolong the death march in a new form and kept the researchers busy. In addition to the World Health Organization, every continental organization takes initiatives to prevent influenza. Yet it could not be suppressed. Influenza has created a crisis in the world by spreading diseases like bird flu, swine flu, Asian flu, Hong Kong flu. However, due to the proper application of the vaccine, the method that has been taught by the medical science to suppress it, is seen by the doctors of the present time as the only recourse of the future. It may strike a new form in the course of time, at least as the history of the past suggests.
This is about some forgotten diseases which were prevented by the discovery of vaccine.
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Featured Image: The Conversation