Showing titles in Contagious Diseases

In this intimate history of the extraordinary Black Plague pandemic that swept through the British Isles in 1665, Evelyn Lord focuses on the plague's effects on smaller towns, where every death was a singular blow affecting the entire community. Lord's fascinating reconstruction of life during plague times presents the personal experiences of a wide range of individuals, from historical notables to common folk. The Great Plague brings this dark era to vivid life through stories of loss and survival from those who grieved, those who fled, and those who hid to await their fate.

The enormous human and economic toll of the rapidly spreading COVID-19 disease offers a vivid reminder that infectious disease pandemics are one of the greatest existential threats to humanity. This book provides an accessible explanation of how viruses emerge to cause pandemics, how our immune system combats them, and how diagnostic tests, vaccines, and antiviral therapies work - concepts that are a foundation for our public health policies.

In Healing Lyme Disease Naturally, anthropologist Wolf D. Storl shares his own success in overcoming a difficult, sometimes deadly disease that is reaching epidemic proportions. When he was diagnosed, Dr. Storl refused standard treatments because of antibiotic intolerance. Instead, he researched healing systems of various cultures including traditional Chinese medicine, American Indian healing practices, homeopathy, and traditional Western herbal lore and discovered the teasel root.

Viruses are big news. From pandemics such as HIV, swine flu, and SARS, we are constantly being bombarded with information about new lethal infections. In this Very Short Introduction, Dorothy Crawford demonstrates how clever these entities really are. From their discovery and the unravelling of their intricate structures, Crawford demonstrates how these tiny parasites are by far the most abundant life forms on the planet.

Overcoming the Darkness of COVID is about two doctors who used a treatment protocol early in the pandemic and early in treatment, when the conventional wisdom issued was not to provide any treatment to patients and send them home. To the contrary, every one of the patients Dr. Tyson and Dr. Fareed treated early in the illness recovered and there were no deaths. This book is their story, complete with testimonials from patients and other doctors, research studies, news clippings, and most of all, the reasons why this successful treatment was held back from the public.

El 31 de diciembre de 2019 China informó a la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) sobre la aparición de varios casos de neumonía de causa desconocida en Wuhan, ciudad de la provincia de Hubei. El 23 de enero se cerró Hubei. El 31 de enero la OMS decretó la emergencia sanitaria global. Después de que el máximo organismo a nivel mundial de la salud declarase la aparición de esta pandemia global y los periodistas, gobernantes y políticos —aunque no todos— la aceptaran sin rechistar, las preguntas, angustiosas, se sucedieron sin respuesta.

When a waiting world learned on April 12, 1955, that Jonas Salk had successfully created a vaccine to prevent poliomyelitis, he became a hero overnight. Born in a New York tenement, humble in manner, Salk had all the makings of a 20th-century icon - a knight in a white coat. In the wake of his achievement, he received a staggering number of awards and honors; for years his name ranked with Gandhi and Churchill on lists of the most revered people.

A fascinating look at a bizarre, forgotten epidemic from the national best-selling author of The American Plague. In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it arrived.

Hundreds of researchers and clinicians have been making breakthroughs in understanding Lyme disease. I am sharing my understanding of these breakthroughs as a clinical epidemiologist and physician with more than 36 years of experience.

For years the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security has curated an interactive online tool for professionals that identifies the activities involved across all phases of an outbreak. The Georgetown Outbreak Activity Library (GOAL) captures what needs to get done, when, and by whom. Now, in The Outbreak Atlas, Rebecca Katz and Mackenzie S. Moore have translated this complex material into a book designed for a public audience.

For centuries mankind has waged war against the infections that, left untreated, would have the power to wipe out communities, or even entire populations. Yet for all our advanced scientific knowledge, only one human disease - smallpox - has ever been eradicated globally. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola and Zika have provided vivid examples of how difficult it is to contain an infection once it strikes and the panic that a rapidly spreading epidemic can ignite.

In January 2020, Donald Trump was on the fast track to an easy re-election. While his first two years had been stymied by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Democrats, his third year had been one of remarkable success. The United States had low unemployment and was making strides across the globe. The president's rallies were well-attended, and he was being projected to win four hundred electoral votes and about forty-five states. Then came COVID-19.

The bumper-sticker directive to ‘follow the science’ was actually an evasion of responsibility. It let people off the hook for their bad decisions in a crisis. Was New York Governor Cuomo’s executive order sending COVID-hospitalized patients back to nursing homes to infect other vulnerable nursing home patients ‘following the science’? Relative to the total nursing home population, Governor Cuomo contributed to a larger percentage of nursing-home deaths - especially when compared to the states without such a policy.

In medical charts, the term "N.A.D." (No Apparent Distress) is used for patients who appear stable. The phrase also aptly describes America's medical system when it comes to treating the underprivileged. Medical students learn on the bodies of the poor - and the poor suffer from their mistakes. Rachel Pearson confronted these harsh realities when she started medical school in Galveston, Texas.

Unlike natural disasters, whose destruction is concentrated in a limited area over a period of days, and illnesses, which have devastating effects but are limited to individuals and their families, infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt.

Infectious disease is a moving target: new diseases emerge every year, old diseases evolve into new forms, and ecological and socioeconomic upheavals change the transmission pathways that spread disease. But where does disease come from? How is it transmitted from one person to another? And why are some individuals more susceptible than others? In this Very Short Introduction, Marta Wayne and Benjamin Bolker address these questions through the lenses of ecology and evolution.

Paul Farmer has battled AIDS in rural Haiti and deadly strains of drug-resistant tuberculosis in the slums of Peru. A physician-anthropologist with more than fifteen years in the field, Farmer writes from the front lines of the war against these modern plagues and shows why, even more than those of history, they target the poor.

Go behind the scenes on the Covid wards of one of Britain's busiest hospitals, Bradford Royal Infirmary. 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of coronavirus, but it's easy to forget the shock, fear and confusion that pervaded Britain as the pandemic first hit. In this exceptional radio series, senior NHS doctor and epidemiologist Professor John Wright takes us back to those crucial early days, giving us a first-hand account of one hospital's fight against COVID-19 and providing an invaluable oral history of this unique historical moment.

Over the last 30 years of epidemics and pandemics, we learned every lesson needed to stop this coronavirus outbreak in its tracks. We heeded almost none of them. The result is a pandemic on a scale never before seen in our lifetimes. In this captivating, authoritative and eye-opening audiobook, science journalist Debora MacKenzie lays out the story of how and why it happened: the previous viruses that should have prepared us, the shocking public health failures that paved the way, the failure to contain the outbreak and, most importantly, what we must do to prevent future pandemics.

In The End of Epidemics, leading public health authority Dr Jonathan D. Quick tells the stories of the heroes, past and present, who’ve succeeded in their fights to stop the spread of illness and death. He explains the science and the politics of combating epidemics. And he provides a detailed seven-part plan showing exactly how world leaders, health professionals, the business community, media and ordinary citizens can work together to prevent epidemics, saving millions of lives.