Raging epidemic

There have been earlier outbreaks of cholera8212;one in southern India and Sri Lanka following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, hundreds died of cholera in Basra when the city8217;s sewage system was destroyed. One of the worst recent outbreaks was in 1994 when thousands of Rwandan refugees fleeing the genocide succumbed to cholera.

Cholera and a hand pump

In September 1854, cholera broke out in Soho, London, killing over 700 people in a matter of weeks. A doctor, John Snow, plotted and mapped the spread of the disease. He found out that brewery workers in Soho were left untouched. That, he figured out, was possibly because they drank ale and had their own water source. That8217;s how he narrowed in on a water pump on Broad Street, where the water had been contaminated by an infected baby8217;s nappy. The nappy had been washed in a bucket and the dirty water had found its way into the sewage system and then into the water supply. Though the residents of Soho refused to believe they were getting cholera from the water they drank, Snow removed the handle from the pump. The epidemic ceased.

BIRD FLU

Since the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003, it has killed 246 people in a dozen countries, infected 389 people and led to lakhs of birds being culled, according to the World Health Organisation. Last week, Indonesia confirmed two new cases of human bird flu. Of the 139 cases confirmed to date in Indonesia, 113 have been fatal. Less than three weeks after India declared itself to be free of bird flu, a fresh outbreak was detected in Assam last week and thousands of chickens were culled and a bird flu alert has been declared in the state. Hong Kong too confirmed an outbreak and said it would investigate whether smuggled eggs from mainland China might have been responsible for the flu. Thousands of birds were culled and traders were banned from importing chicken from China. Experts are studying the H5N1 virus8212;a bird virus8212;to see if it is mutating into a form that will be transmitted from person to person. If that happens, the virus could trigger a deadly pandemic. So far, those human infected with the flu have had direct or indirect contact with infected birds.

TUBERCULOSIS

Fifteen years after WHO declared TB to be a global emergency, the disease has become one of the world8217;s major causes of illness and death. India, with 325,000 annual TB deaths, has the second largest number of TB cases after China, which has an estimated 4.5 million cases. Health officials believe that TB8217;s resurgence is a direct result of the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in these regions. But if the West thought the disease would restrict itself to the developing world, here8217;s news: the region with the highest level of TB treatment failures is Europe. According to WHO data, 41 countries have cases of drug-resistant TB. A December study showed how levels of drug-resistant TB in China are nearly twice the global average and almost 10 per cent of cases are resistant to the most effective first-line drugs. TB requires a six-to-12 month course of treatment, but many patients give up halfway. Since TB is contagious, it can create panic like in Australia last week where 300 children are under watch after their doctor was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

CANCER

This will be the world8217;s number one killer, surpassing heart disease by 2010, according to a World Health Organization WHO report. Poorer countries, like India and China, are set to suffer most from the trend due to smoking, high-fat diets and other factors, WHO8217;s International Agency for Research on Cancer warned last week. Some 12 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed this year and more than seven million people will die from the disease.