The popularity of Mad Men on television has spawned a retro-craze across the country! Our recent past is being celebrated and everything old is new again! Unfortunately, that’s true with illness and disease as well. It may not be the zombie apocalypse, but there are definitely dark things that have come back from the dead. Diseases most of us thought were long gone are making a stunning re-emergence in the 21st Century.
If you follow the news you probably believe that newly discovered diseases like Ebola or Avian Flu are what all of us should be on the lookout for. Emergency room doctors and nurses are routinely asking questions concerning travel to Africa and Asia in order to screen patients for those two conditions. But they might be missing the real culprits behind a sick patient’s discomfort. The patient’s actual condition may be something no one in this country has thought about in a very long time – Diphtheria, Tuberculosis, and the Bubonic Plague.
The World Health Organization (WHO) identified Diphtheria and Bubonic Plague as two of the diseases whose re-emergence should again be monitored just last year. And although cases in North America are still extremely rare, the rest of the world is only a crowded plane ride away. Borders have become irrelevant in a world where a virus or pathogen from across the globe can travel to a crowded American city within a few hours’ time.
Diphtheria
Diphtheria is a highly-contagious bacterial infection that causes difficulty in breathing, paralysis, and, sometimes, death. This disease was once eradicated in the developed world but has recently had a resurgence across the globe. Every year thousands of cases of Diphtheria are seen in developing nations without universal vaccination programs.
Most Americans have been vaccinated against it, but infants that have not yet been vaccinated and adults with compromised immune systems are at the greatest risk for Diphtheria.
Bubonic Plague
You remember the Bubonic Plague, don’t you? The pesky germ that killed off a third of Europe’s population not once, but twice in history, is once again threatening lives in rural areas around the planet. Traveling across the world on the backs of rodents from the sixth to the twentieth centuries, this deadly killer has found humans once again.
WHO estimates that the Plague, or ‘Black Death’ as it was once known, is still one of the deadliest diseases in the world. An estimated 20,000 cases have occurred in humans since entering the new millennium.
Mostly originating in Peru, China, India and Africa, the Bubonic Plague is caused by the Yersinia bacteria and is most prevalent in rural areas that have limited hygiene facilities and exposure to rodents. Once the disease jumps from rodent to human it can kill a person within 24 hours and is spread when the afflicted cough in to the atmosphere.
The Plague never really left us, according to the CDC, and nearly 1000 cases occurred in the United States over the course of the 20th century. Recent reports have involved squirrels, rabbits and other rodents coming in contact with household pets who then spread the disease to human family members. New Mexico reported an outbreak in their human population last year that had originated from a Plague-infected dog.
Tuberculosis
In 1993 WHO declared Tuberculosis a public health emergency but the actual number of people with the disease continues to rise. In the last ten years over 26 million patients have been effectively treated for TB but in 2015 it still kills nearly 4400 people every day.
Tuberculosis was once known as the consumptive disease because of the way it consumed the health of those afflicted. It is an infectious bacterial disease that mostly affects the lungs but also damages the brain, kidneys and spine. It is spread via droplets from the throat of infected people when they cough and it believed to have been around for thousands of years. Scientist have discovered that Tuberculosis was common in both ancient Greece and Rome.
Because of global travel, TB remains a significant health threat in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control, the CDC believes between 9 million and 14 million cases of Tuberculosis remain undiagnosed each year. Often those afflicted are asymptomatic at the onset of the infection but are at risk of the disease progressing to the deadly and contagious killer that it later becomes.
Antibiotic-resistant strains of TB have developed in recent years that threaten to reverse any progress modern science has made against the disease. Many countries are poorly-equipped to fight outbreaks among their population, lacking both the infrastructure and post-treatment monitoring that is required to beat the disease altogether.
Vaccinations – Victim of Its Own Success?
These scary old diseases or ‘retro-illnesses’ have made a big comeback in the global community of the new millennium. Once thought to have been vanquished, we have now seen their re-occurrence throughout the world. Diphtheria, like the similarly re-emerging Whooping cough, Mumps and Measles is completely preventable through the use of vaccinations.
Many countries still do not employ widespread vaccination programs and unfortunately, not all people in developed nations choose to vaccinate their children. Recent controversies involving vaccinations and autism have caused many parents to second guess the medical community concerning them. Even though a link between autism and vaccinations has been found unequivocally not to exist, vaccination rates among educated populations have steadily declined in recent years.
Ironically, global vaccination programs did such a good job of eradicating illness that the diseases themselves are no longer feared, or even remembered by the living population! Forget Ebola and other far-flung outbreaks of disease, our biggest threat comes from the growing number of un-vaccinated people here, in our own country.
What Can Be Done?
Parents must put away un-founded fears and get their children and elderly vaccinated against disease! Places where many deadly diseases continue to thrive are but a plane ride away. Booster shots for adults and vaccinations for the young are an easy fix. And most importantly, we must learn to recognize when we are ill and immediately seek medical attention. Diphtheria and Tuberculosis can be cured in most people if diagnosed and treated early! Even the Bubonic Plague has a 50% cure rate if treated immediately after infection. Zombies aside, coming back from the dead is not an option for the rest of us.
Photo: SJ Pyrotechnic
