Infection diseases

With the invention of more effective and efficient means of transportation, the world suffered a drastic change in terms of the speed at which events occur and how fast the world realizes what is happening in every corner of the planet. People are traveling from New York to Tokyo in just 13 hours, from "A" to "B" in just a fraction of the time it took for a citizen of the Middle Ages.

The most destructive plague in Europe during the Middle Ages was the bubonic plague which was called Black Death. This disease produced inflammation of the lymph nodes. The disease was spread by a flea on some rats that bites another animal or human transmitting the disease. This disease caused by a bacteria known as Yersinia, that could remain in the body about three weeks without symptoms. Such bacteria multiply rapidly in the bloodstream, in some cases the disease became pneumonia what was started to spread by contact between people and through breathing.

In our time one of the diseases that have caused more damage is the avian influenza, which has had four pandemics. The first outbreak of this disease is known as “Spanish Flu” in 1918, this pandemic left a result of the death of 40 million people. The second outbreak was the “Asian flu” in 1957 and left 2 million people death. The third outbreak is called “Hong Kong Flu” which occurred in 1968. The fourth outbreak was the global pandemic of 2004 to 2006 that killed approximately 55% of people who were infected.

Although we have many advances in technology nowadays, science and other factors in contrast to ancient times, the percentage of deaths due to infectious diseases has been increasing in both developed and in developing countries. This is because the phenomenon of globalization has led to the rapid and effective spread of disease and the immunity of the existing virus vaccine. This can be attributed to the activities of international trade, the destruction of nature, migration and refuge of people from different countries, and the emergence of new diseases difficult to combat. An example of the above mentioned is the AIDS virus which has spread rapidly due to sexual contact with international traders and carriers of the virus then spread to different people around the world as a string. This virus HIV / AIDS has killed more than 20 million people worldwide and an estimated 40 million individuals currently living with the virus. There is no effective vaccine and so far the enormous efforts to obtain them have failed.

It is important to remember that globalization has allowed us access to more and better roads, economic development, social and cultural, but also has brought negative consequences such as the development of most infectious diseases and a faster spreading of them.