00:00You
00:30We live in an interconnected and increasingly globalized world.
00:44Thanks to international jet travel, people and the diseases they carry can be in any
00:49city on the planet in a matter of hours.
00:58And once the virus touches down, sometimes all it takes is one sneeze to spread the infection
01:03throughout the community.
01:07When humans were hunter-gatherers roaming the wild savannas, we were never in one place
01:11long enough and settlements were not large enough to sustain the transmission of infectious
01:16microbes.
01:17But with the advent of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago and the arrival of permanent
01:22settlements in the Middle East, people began living side by side with animals, facilitating
01:28the spread of bacteria and viruses between cattle and humans.
01:34Epidemics and pandemics come in many shapes and forms.
01:37In 2010, for instance, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, forcing thousands of people
01:43into temporary refugee camps.
01:45Within weeks, the camps have become breeding grounds for cholera, a bacteria sprayed by
01:50contaminated water, triggering a country-wide epidemic.
01:54But the most common cause of epidemics are viruses such as measles, influenza and HIV.
02:02And when they go global, we call them pandemics.
02:07Pandemics have occurred throughout human history.
02:10Some have left scars on the tissue and bone of their victims, while evidence for others
02:15comes from preserved DNA.
02:17For instance, scientists have recovered DNA from the bacteria that transmits tuberculosis
02:22from the remains of ancient Egyptian mummies.
02:27And in 2011, scientists investigating a plague pit in the city of London were able to reconstruct
02:33the genome of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for the Black Death of the 14th century.
02:41It is thought the plague originated in China in around 1340, spreading west along the Silk Road,
02:47the caravan route running from Mongolia to the Crimea.
02:51In 1347, the plague reached the Mediterranean, and by 1400, it had killed in excess of 34 million
02:58Europeans, earning it the title, the Great Mortality.
03:04It was later historians who called it the Black Death.
03:08However, by far the greatest pandemic killer is influenza.
03:13Flu is constantly circulating between the southern and northern hemispheres.
03:18In North America and Europe, seasonal flus occur every autumn and winter.
03:23As the majority of children and adults will have been exposed to the virus in previous seasons,
03:28these illnesses are usually mild.
03:30However, every 20 to 40 years or so, the virus undergoes a dramatic mutation.
03:39Usually this occurs when a wild flu virus circulating in ducks and farm poultry meets a pic virus
03:45and they exchange genes.
03:47This process is known as antigenic shift and has occurred throughout human history.
03:54The first recorded pandemic occurred in 1580.
03:58The 18th and 19th centuries saw at least six further pandemics.
04:03In terms of mortality, none can compare with the great flu pandemic of 1918.
04:11The first indication of the pandemic came in the spring, when American troops in northern
04:15France began complaining of chills, headaches and fever.
04:20Then the following September, at a U.S. Army barracks near Boston, soldiers started collapsing
04:25on parade, prompting their removal to the camp infirmary.
04:30As a surgeon there recalled, two hours after admission they have the mahogany spots over
04:35the cheekbones and a few hours later you can begin to see the cyanosis extending from their
04:40ears and spreading all over the face.
04:43It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, and it is simply a struggle for
04:48air until they suffocate.
04:52On the SS Leviathan, a huge American transport en route to Bordeaux, sick men hemorrhage blood
04:58from their noses, turning the decks between their bunks slick with bodily fluids.
05:04Meanwhile, British soldiers returning from northern France on furlough introduced the flu to Dover,
05:10and other Channel ports, from where the virus was carried by rail to London.
05:14By the time the pandemic had run its course in April 1919, an estimated 675,000 Americans
05:22and 230,000 Britons were dead.
05:26In India alone, some 10 million were killed.
05:30And worldwide, the death toll was an astonishing 50 million.
05:35But that was then.
05:37Today, planes can transport viruses to any country on the globe in a fraction of the time it took
05:41in 1918.
05:44In February 2003, for instance, a Chinese doctor arrived at the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong,
05:50feeling unwell.
05:52Unknown to him, he was harbouring a new animal origin virus called SARS, short for Severe Acute
05:59Respiratory Syndrome.
06:07Within 24 hours of checking into room 913, 16 other guests had been infected, and over
06:14the following days, five boarded planes to overseas destinations, spreading the virus to Vietnam,
06:20Singapore and Canada.
06:23Flights between Hong Kong, Toronto and other international cities were quickly grounded.
06:28And thanks to other emergency measures, a pandemic was averted.
06:33By the time the outbreak was over four months later, SARS had infected 29 countries worldwide,
06:40and more than 1,000 people were dead.
06:44For all that the virus was rapidly contained, however, there was little that could be done
06:48about the alarming news reports carried by cable news channels and the Internet.
06:53As bloggers added to the hysteria by spreading unfounded conspiracy theories, tourism in Hong
06:59Kong and other affected cities ground to a halt, costing businesses more than US$10 billion.
07:07One business, however, did very well.
07:10Above all, SARS was a reminder that pandemics have always been associated with panic.
07:22If history teaches us anything, it is that while pandemics may start small, their impacts
07:27can be as dramatic as wars and natural disasters.
07:32The difference today is that science gives us the ability to detect pandemics right at the
07:37very beginning, and to take action to mitigate their impacts before they spread too widely.
07:43as the entire world that has made it, and also can spread it as a new community, and to take action.
07:44It is also a young people that can spread the rapidly out the world's zaman.
07:47Thank you and thank you, and thank you, and thank you for your time and everything.
07:48Even more important, it is something that you do not hear.
07:49It is important that the virus was constantly making a hungry life cycle, and you will try to
07:51keep your life cycle.
07:52It is likely that the virus is also powerful.
07:53In a country that, the virus is still more widely…
07:54The virus is powerful, and it is always improved.
07:55More dements that help you connect with a new life cycle.
07:56So, the virus can spread the virus to the virus and the virus.
07:57It is relevant to be a new world that can spread the virus from the virus to the virus
07:58from the virus.
07:59And you can spread the virus to the virus.
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