Talk:Pandemic

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This article has been cited as a source by a media organization. See the 2006 press source article for details.

The citation is in: "Time to Pandemic" (July). Official PlayStation Magazine. [1].

Issues, and one real problem:

If the "Antonine plague" was smallpox, it was less virulent than in more recent times.
Identification of black plague with bubonic plague has been questioned.
The list of cholera epidemics jumps from fourth to sixth. Vicki Rosenzweig

Well, I hate to bring it up, but the causal agent of all non-modern plagues, historic and prehistoric, is always subject to question. Opinions on these things run in fashions -- like drapery fabrics. The popular one these days is anthrax -- here, there, and everywhere. These mysteries will never be "solved" absolutely, but keep in mind that the immunity of the population and the bio ID of the disease strain has a significant impact in each occurance. When a disease is new to a population (i.e. the America's) the impact can be horrific. But later on, ..... For what it's worth, I think the Antonine Plague (above) was measles, and the Plague of Cyprian a couple of generations later was smallpox. But that is just my opinion and historians vary. Sorry to run off at the mouth, but it is strange and unreasonable for modern people to expect absolute truth about historic occurances (even in Wiki). Comments welcome. WBardwin 02:53, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

1 History of medicine?
2 Quoted
3 Plague/History/Social Impact
4 Article on Avian Infuenza
5 AIDS
6 Plague
7 Concern about possible future pandemics
8 List of doomsday scenarios

[edit] History of medicine?

I'm taking this out of history of medicine category (it doesn't seem to fit very well there, for what the content is) but sticking the list of historical epidemics there (effectively in its place). Just leaving this note so there's a place for people to get all outraged about the switchabout if they want. --Viki 21:18, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Quoted

To see this quoted and updated, see http://www2.townonline.com/hudson/opinion/view.bg?articleid=112611 13:24, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Plague/History/Social Impact

Some of us on the history side of Wiki have been putting together articles on historic plagues. Recently, discussion has turned to organizing this material for better retrieval by our readers. We have created one new disambig. page and may consider something like a master article, categories, and list organizations. Articles like this one would be referenced and perhaps involved in the shuffle. If you would like to comment on this type of thing, I will check back here periodically or you might comment on the talk page of a (perhaps temporary) article simply called Plague. Thank you. WBardwin 02:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

It concerns me that there are "summaries" of pandemics (here, for example), such as Justinian's Plague, in addition to an original article which lays it out in detail. There is probably a Wiki article somewhere that describes a policy on putting the same or summarized material in more than one place. So when high level details change (which would change a summary), articles have to be changed in many places, well beyond one contributor to keep up with. So the main article may be correct and all these scattered summaries wrong, or wrong in some detail. So I vote for disambig if this sort of scatter summaries can be avoided. Whatever is done, I would think that a single summary could be referenced for all disease-oriented summaries (there may be others that need different facts, like historical ones, for example)67.8.201.227 03:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article on Avian Infuenza

"In June 2005, there's work on this wiki regarding preparation for an avian influenza pandemic. It is the first time a pandemic can be foreseen, maybe averted, maybe mitigated. The reader is urged to go to that page and maybe do some work there."

Moved Lugon's contribution from article page for consideration by contributors. WBardwin 16:20, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AIDS

I truly do not understand the rationale for AIDS not being included in the list of pandemics. SARS, which did make the cut, occurred in a tiny population for a tiny timespan compared to the ravages of AIDS through Africa and Asia. - Montrealais

I don't either. It seems to fit the definition of an epidemic and is mentioned as such in that wiki article. Given the global effect of HiV infections (incidentally, few epidemics mentioned in the pandemics article actually are global, eg, everything mentioned before the Black Death), it warrants a mention IMHO. -- KarlHallowell 13:09, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Looking more carefully, even the CDC [2] considers HIV/AIDS to be a current pandemic.

CDC's HIV mission is to prevent HIV infection and reduce the incidence of HIV-related illness and death, in collaboration with community, state, national, and international partners. CDC’s programs work to improve treatment, care, and support for persons living with HIV and to help build capacity and infrastructure to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Even if this disease isn't considered to be an epidemic (because the infection rate, though high, is "relatively low") in some regions, it certainly was in the 80's. Further, the remark neglects that since the rate of HIV infection apparently is currently increasing substantially in Asia, we should say that HIV/AIDS is epidemic in Africa and in Asia even though a small fraction of the population is infected. The rate of increase is a key component of the definition of "epidemic". -- KarlHallowell 18:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plague

Wasn't there a third outbreak of plague, just before the great fire of london in 1666? I don't know whether it was bubonic or pnemonic though. Perhaps someone should look it up and verify, then add to the article? mastodon 01:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The episode of plague in London, see Great Plague, was one of the last outbreaks associated with the Black Death pandemic. There were several "last gasps" of the disease in Europe during that later period. The disease spottily reappeared in the 18th century as part of the international contagion known as the Third Pandemic. What kind of information about this particular outbreak would you like to see in the Pandemic article? WBardwin 22:01, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Concern about possible future pandemics

im deleting the bit that says: "As of 2004, these diseases have been so virulent as to limit their transmission (an effect known as "burning out")." because it says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola <-- here that: "One pervasive myth follows that the virus kills so fast that it has little time to spread. Victims die very soon after contact with the virus. In reality, the incubation time is usually about a week. The average time from onset of early symptoms to death varies in the range 3-21 days, with a mean of 10.1."