Influenza and Public Health - Learning from Past Pandemics
Major influenza pandemics pose a constant threat. As evidenced by recent H5N1 avian flu and novel H1N1, influenza outbreaks can come in close succession, yet differ in their transmission and impact. With accelerated levels of commercial and population mobility, new forms of flu virus can also spread across the globe with unprecedented speed. Responding quickly and adequately to each outbreak becomes imperative on the part of governments and global public health organizations, but the difficulties of doing so are legion.
Outbreaks of new diseases are emerging at unprecedented rates of one or more per year since the 1970s. Indiscriminate and unaware of political boundaries, newer viruses such as SARS, avian flu, and swine flu have surfaced to infect a world already battling West Nile virus, dengue fever, and HIV/AIDS. As modern health officials struggle to contain and cure these maladies, a rising drug resistance has created superbugs, making many trusted "wonder drugs" ineffective. .
The dream Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar shared of uniting Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East in a single community shuddered and then collapsed in the wars and disasters of the sixth century. Illegal migrations of peoples, religious wars, global pandemics, and the temptations of empire: Rome's end foreshadows our own crises and offers hints how to navigate them, if we will heed this story.
