Plagues, Epidemics and Pandemics

Pandemic always emerge as social constructions determined by the synergy of socioeconomic, cultural, religious, ecological and biological factors. Plagues have been on earth before mankind and in fact they emerge along with life on earth experiencing three and a half billions of years of evolution and adaptation. The encounter of civilizations has facilitated the exchange of microorganisms determining the emergence of plagues and pandemics that have decimated populations. One of the most striking social demonstrations were observed during the Processions of the Flagellants that took place in the Europe of the fourteenth century, in the times of the Black Plague. In the 1990s, a rampant expansion of the seventh cholera pandemic originated in the Celebs Islands, Indonesia arrived into the Pacific coasts of South America, similar social reactions were seen in the times of cholera when this plague arrived into the Americas. Parishioners of the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador participated in the Eastern Christ of Consolation Procession begging to God for a cessation of the epidemic. But also, the London of 1854 was also struck by cholera leading to the John Snow’s classic Soho study where water was found to be the vehicle of transmission. The reanalysis of Snow’s study brings to discussion the following questions: Did the consumption of not well-cooked fish or seafood have been another route of transmission as demonstrated in recent cholera outbreak investigations? Was the cholera epidemic controlled not only by John Snow’s clever interventions but also because of the development of protective natural immunity by the Londoners?