Оглавление
Salvador Macip. Modern Epidemics
CONTENTS
Guide
Pages
MODERN EPIDEMICS. From the Spanish Flu to COVID-19
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction. An ever-present danger
Let’s do our homework
A tool for understanding the present and preparing for the future
1 Travel Companions
They were here first
Space: the last frontier
Peaceful passengers
Nomenclature
Secondary effects
The dark side
A bit of terminology
Which disease spreads fastest?
Typhoid Mary
Bacteria
Viruses: the smallest life form?
Fungi: microscopic mushrooms
2 The Story of a Never-Ending Struggle
The invisible hand behind things
Just one victim, tremendous consequences
A bacterium to blame for a new religion
Rats, fleas, and bacteria
Delayed benefits
The ‘Spanish’ flu
We don’t learn from our errors
The resuscitated virus
Smallpox, a disease of the past
Poliomyelitis: next on the list?
Titbits: famous people with polio
Cost in lives, cost in money
3 Our Arsenal
Simple but vital
The immune system
The strong sex
The next step forward: vaccines
Types of vaccine
Cancer vaccines
The papilloma vaccine, a controversial solution
The danger of listening to the wrong people
More conspiracies
The real precedent
Dangerous decisions
Future challenges
Four questions for Adolfo García-Sastre, director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York
Antibiotics: the offensive begins
A classical story
Powerful poisons or a sophisticated messaging system?
Miracles with an expiry date
The microbes of the future
Doctors fight resistance
MRSA starts spreading
Resting on our laurels
Let’s see who wins …
The antibiotics of the future
Antivirals
Myth and reality: low temperatures make us catch colds
Who pays the bills?
Revolutionary ideas
Shock troops
Control and prevention
4 The Danger of Knowing Too Much
The paradox: the more we research, the greater the danger
Deadly leak
Has anyone seen my virus?
Dangerous information
Anthrax
Types of biological agents susceptible to being used as weapons (from more to less toxic, according to CDC in the United States)
A controversial name
Bioterrorists in the USA
The wrong man
The return of smallpox?
The silicon mystery
5 Forgotten Diseases and New Diseases
The new infectious diseases
Meningitis
Cholera
Cinematographic viruses
West Nile virus
Ebola
Types of microbiology laboratories
Marburg: the other serious haemorrhagic fever
The cure is worse than the disease
The ‘forgotten’ diseases
‘Forgotten diseases’ covered by the WHO programme
Chagas disease
Dengue
An additional danger of global warming
Hand, foot and mouth disease
6 Coronaviruses and Future Pandemics. Coronaviruses: the new plague?
SARS: the coronaviruses enter the scene
Panic hotel
MERS, or camel sickness
COVID-19 changes everything
How to stop the virus
The vaccine race
The future of the pandemic
First-class passports
What lies ahead for SARS-CoV-2
Lessons from COVID-19: how to manage a crisis
And the next pandemic?
The virus that will come in from the heat
Where is the ‘supervirus’?
Predicting pandemics with your computer
Health and economy: an inevitable relationship
How can we prevent the spread?
Getting in on the ground floor
7 Influenza
Protected forever?
The virus’s thousand faces
ID cards
The killer cold
A winter malady
Aggressive outbreaks
A useful treatment
One vaccine or many vaccines?
The future of humanity depends on an egg
The danger of bird flu
The name game
The 2009 influenza pandemic
The genealogical tree
Was it really swine flu?
Background: the 1976 flu
A lab virus?
No one escapes it
Drugs and the race against time
Epidemic or pandemic?
Flu pandemic phases of alert (according to the WHO)
A change of hemispheres
Does it make sense to close schools?
Prepare for the worst
Who should be given the vaccine?
The consequences of the pandemic
8 AIDS
Myth and reality: how is AIDS spread?
Another multifaceted virus
The African sickness
Rumours
The myth of ‘patient zero’
A scientists’ squabble
So, who discovered HIV?
The Nobel of discord
The silent infection
Closing borders
Necessary swift diagnosis
A miraculous treatment … that doesn’t cure
Strange bedfellows
More options
Side effects
The virus becomes more dangerous
The false ‘superbug’
Treatments for the future
And the famous vaccine?
Natural selection (with a bit of help from viruses)
Defence is the best attack
Radical prevention
Myth and reality: someone who is being treated for AIDS can’t infect another person through sexual contact
An economical prevention?
Where does the money come from?
A gift with strings attached
Denialists: as dangerous as the virus
Myth and reality: vitamins are effective in combating AIDS
They are everywhere
9 Tuberculosis
Koch’s bacillus: an armoured microbe
Koch’s postulates
A problem that comes back
The threat of resistant tuberculosis
Primitive treatments
New treatments, old treatments
Is there some solution?
Another disease with no vaccine
The tuberculosis that comes from cows
Cleaning up milk
10 Malaria
All because of a mosquito
Mosquitoes are gourmets too
To catch a mosquito
Goodwill is not enough
Myth and reality
A medicinal cocktail
The treatment and how to get it to people who need it
Has the time of resistances come?
Phases of a clinical study
The controversial SPf66 vaccine
Myth and reality
The army is also researching
Against the insects: mosquito nets and genetic engineering
Global action
A tropical disease only?
Bill Gates’s unfunny joke
Epilogue
Glossary
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
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