Surfers Against Sewage
These maps have gone viral – here’s what they owe to 19th century cholera campaigns.
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The seriousness of an epidemic is a function of several factors, including the degree of contagiousness and potential for rapid spread.
Access to clean water is essential in preventing a number of infections.
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Evidence suggests that involving marginalised communities in setting priorities and designing collective action can lead to improved health outcomes.
Normalizing the use of masks by vulnerable people during flu season could save many lives, even after the threat of COVID-19 has receded.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
After two years of COVID-19, it’s understandable that many people are weary of infection prevention measures. But simply being tired of the pandemic is no reason to let our guard down.
A growing interest in fermented foods may direct people to a Bengali fermented rice dish.
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A rice dish’s debut on a cooking competition show reflects the growing acceptance of ethnic foods.
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A consequence of a warming world is prolonged dry spells and periods of drought that can lead to infectious diseases like cholera.
Ocean waters are now warmer, more acidic and hold less oxygen. They’re also stressed from overfishing and pollution.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
As the climate changes, the ocean is also changing. And that’s putting our health at risk.
Cholera outbreaks are more common in internally displaced persons camps
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Nigeria needs a multisectoral approach to break its annual cholera epidemic.
Men cross the front of the still smoking lava rocks from an eruption of the Mount Nyiragongo on May 23, 2021 in Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Nyiragongo is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of its fast-moving lava. It can flow at a speed of about 100km per hour.
Insights editors choose their top reads of the year.
The iconography of the Pestsäule in Vienna indicates that the plague the city suffered was viewed as punishment for sin.
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Although memorials to past pandemics are not as prolific as war memorials, they do exist. A scholar of visual culture provides a brief history of monuments around the world.
Makoko neighbourhood in Lagos, initially founded as a fishing village.
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If we learn from COVID-19, there are three key areas to tackle to make cities safer from outbreaks of future infectious diseases.
A Cholera Patient, Random Shots No. 2. Cartoon by British satirist Robert Cruikshank, circa 1832.
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Pandemic histories are useful for understanding COVID-19, but how they connect with race, public health, revolution, labour and colonialism are needed to explain the present and predict the future.
Cholera would often turn its victims’ skin a bluish grey.
Wellcome Collection
There is a sad precedent of pandemic disease threatening the residents of care institutions – and of authorities not heeding the dangers.
New York City has closed some streets to traffic to give residents more room to roam during the coronavirus pandemic, Queens, May 13, 2020.
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For centuries, disease outbreaks have forced cities to transform physically and operationally in ways that ultimately benefited all residents going forward.
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Some 1,500 years ago, the Plague of Justinian spread via ships from North Africa to Europe and Asia, killing up to 50 million people.
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What would happen if plague destroyed all of humanity? Mary Shelley’s 1826 book suggests Earth would be better off.
U.S. officials risk public health by equating COVID-19 with places far from home.
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Emphasizing foreign origins of a disease can have racist connotations and implications for how people understand their own risk of disease.
Past disease outbreaks improved the way we lived. If governments are smart, COVID-19 could do the same.
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Historically, pandemics have brought about profound societal improvements. Will that happen this time?
The virus that causes COVID-19 seems able to spread to anyone, anywhere.
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While identifying a new disease by its place of origin seems intuitive, history shows that doing so can have serious consequences for the people that live there.