Download A Webquest on Pandemics

Introduction:
Epidemic
Contagious
Anti-biotic
immunity
Terminology and Information:
Pandemic
Bacterium
Zoonotic
Communicable
diseases.
Pestilence
Virus
Epidemiologists
DNA
Endemic
Vaccination
Hemorrhagic
Pathogen
Vaccine
Ring a ring a rosie
A pocket full of posies
Atishoo… Atishoo…
We all fall down...."
"Ring around the roses" was not always a child’s song; it deals with one of the most terrifying periods of medical
history.
In the period in the mid 1300’s Asia, Africa and Europe were devastated by a variety of Bubonic Plague, from the
bacterium Yersins Pestis, hosted by fleas and carried on Black Rats. These black rats moved along trade routes and
as the rats died ( yes animals can get the Plague!) and the fleas moved to new warm blooded hosts - The result was
approximately 25 million deaths in Europe alone… about 1/3 of the population.
There were limitations to the disease – cold either through latitude or altitude discouraged the rats.
The virulent nature of the “Black Death” makes modern epidemiologists believe that this may have been a
combination of Bubonic Plague and a Hemorrhagic fever, such as Ebola.
The most likely source was in China…
certainly deaths were recorded there
as early as the 1830’s, however, until
recent times the origins of
pandemics is often unknown.
Source: http://historymedren.about.com/od/theblackdeath/ig/Spread-of-the-Black-Death/msAsiaBDa.htm
This map shows the spread of the disease across
Europe at this time.
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/
churchhistory220/LectureTen/
BlackDeathSpread.htm
This was not the first pandemic. Some other pandemics are:
ONGOING
HIV/AIDS, Influenza, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Measles, Leprosy, Yellow Fever, Malaria
SPECIFIC
Plague of Athens
430 BCE
Antonine Plague
165-180
Plague of Justinian
541-542
Spanish Flu
1919
SARS
2003
A comprehensive list is at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
Task
To help protect the world, and by adopting a role, you will become a specialist in one aspect of PANDEMICS.
With the knowledge you gain from your research you will inform the rest of your team. Your team will need to decide
how best to present its findings and initiatives in relation to a specific conclusion (also known as “the big question”).
Refer to Conclusions below for your team’s big question.
Process
1
In your teams choose individual roles (noting not all roles need to be covered by each team):
You may be:
A Historian of Pandemics
Director of the World Health Organization
Director of a US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
Director of Medecins Sans Frontiers
Minister for Health in Singapore
Minister for Health in Australia
A School Principal
A Specialist in one or two specific infectious diseases, such as:
1.
2.
3.
4.
2.
Malaria
Viral haemorrhagic fevers (for example, Ebola)
Pandemic Influenza
Emerging diseases (e.g. nodding disease)
The following questions may help you focus on what your role would need to cover:
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How does a person contract this disease?
Where did the disease originate?
What are the symptoms of the disease?
Is there a cure or a vaccine?
What other ways can you prevent getting the disease?
What are a person’s chances of survival if they have contracted the disease?
How does a doctor diagnose the disease?
Will blood be drawn or other tests conducted?
How long will the patient remain sick?
Is there a treatment to ease symptoms?
What are the local traditions and behaviours regarding disease?
What medicines and equipment are needed?
Is there any impediment to treating the disease?
Who funds the treatment?
How is treatment carried out?
How is the disease spread on an international scale?
How is the disease controlled on an international scale?
The International dimension of pandemics has another whole set of questions to consider….
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How do we protect health care workers (in the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa over 125 health
care worker have died)?
How do we carry out “forward defense” with disease?
How do we fund the enormous cost of tracking and preventing the spread of pandemics?
Who should be in charge? WHO? What powers should they have?
How much should we rely on the expertise of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) like Medecins Sans
Frontiers? Should countries do this rather than private organisations?
Please note: the above lists of questions are indicative only. Once each team has decided upon appropriate roles
after considering its “big question”, each team member needs to prepare for and conduct his/her own research.
A note on The Developing World
Epidemics are especially dangerous in third world countries where poverty, hunger and malnutrition have always
been the greatest challenges. Lack of agricultural productivity, and basic health care, although improving, has been
badly affected by terrorism and religious/cultural extremism and the absorption of funds from governments, to
military purposes. In the same way, treatments for EPIDEMICS like Ebola have moved funds away from chronic
pandemic diseases like Malaria. In turn these diseases reduce the conditions of people living in those countries.
These epidemics/ pandemic diseases are responsible for 50% of the overall deaths in those countries. In poor
nations, the death and disability caused by these diseases are currently at 40% of the population. These are often
communicable diseases. The main reasons people die of diseases are the lack of basic education, health and
nutrition, clean water, and sanitation. These problems have affected every developing nation to its core. It is
calculated that Malaria reduces a country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by 6% per annum.
Conclusion
Towards the end of this quest, as an expert in the area/role you studied, you will share your understanding with the
other members of your team. Your team will know how its focused diseases are transmitted from person to person,
how a person can prevent getting each disease, and what treatments are available to those who contract them. You
will also be aware of the history of the diseases.
Your team then needs to collaborate, conclude and present:
Team 1:
Can we ever defeat Pandemics and are we likely to ever suffer another Black
Death?
Team 2:
What should Australia and Singapore do to protect their citizens (including their
assigned health care workers) from emerging and re-emerging
epidemics/pandemics, while responsibly supporting international responses to
major outbreaks?
Team 3:
What are the biggest challenges, with respect to Pandemics, faced by the global
stakeholder organisations (WHO, Centre for Disease Control, …) in the coming
decades and how should they address those challenges?
Your team needs to consider how it can convey its key findings and initiatives to the proposed audience of AHS
students, IGS/AHS teachers and of course your IGS/AHS colleagues on the program. This has previously been
achieved via informative and engaging role-playing presentations.
Priority Research -
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/en/
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http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21576375-new-viruses-emergechina-and-middle-east-world-poorly-prepared (H7N9 – latest outbreak)
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http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/12/deadly-disease-modern-global-epidemic
Useful Websites – a starting point only!
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/plagues-pandemics-and-ebola/5713746
Communicable Disease and Immunization Index
Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Immunization Section
Infectious Facts
http://www.astdhpphe.org/infect/
World Health Organization (W.H.O)
http://www.who.int
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/en/
http://www.biologycorner.com/quests/outbreak/diseaselist.html
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-pandemic-influenza.htm
Film - Underground Rome (Antonine Plague)
http://www.theage.com.au/world/south-korea-races-to-contain-mers-virus-outbreak-with-two-dead-and1300-quarantined-20150603-ghg8y0.html
Foreign Correspondent - The Clinic - Published: 12/08/2014 , The Polio Emergency - Published:
27/05/2014 and Into the Hot Zone - Published: 26/08/2014
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/archives_2014.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTHuOUPeLzw (SARS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
http://www.livescience.com/12951-10-infectious-diseases-ebola-plague-influenza.html