VIRAL INFECTIONS

History:

Viral infections appeared 12,000 years ago following the birth of sedentarization, hunter-gatherer peoples developed a community economy organized around a central power, guarantor of their safety and survival. The appearance of livestock contributed to the transmission of pathogens from livestock to humans such as smallpox, diphtheria or measles.

The development of trade with Asia, wars and sieges of cities favored the appearance of the plague and major epidemics in Europe. The arrival of Europeans in South America favored the transmission of pathogens to indigenous populations (the Indians). Industrialization, the development of cities and precariousness favored the emergence or re-emergence of infections such as cholera, tuberculosis in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Among the major global pandemics that have marked civilization since antiquity, we can cite:

The Plague of Athens, a typhoid fever characterized by a high prolonged fever and significant diarrhea, came from Africa and took away a third of the population of the Greek city.

The Antonine Plague: a smallpox pandemic (hemorrhagic fever) that led to the death of 10 to 30% of the population of the Roman Empire.

The Justinian Plague, caused by a bacterium yersinia pestis (inflammation of the lymph nodes), killed 25 million people worldwide, originated in Asia from India and Persia, reached the French shores and the Mediterranean.

The Black Death killed 75 million people worldwide during 6 years during the Middle Ages.

Cholera (intestinal infection caused by bacteria present in dirty and stagnant water) appeared in India, wreaked havoc in 1826, spread to Russia and then to Eastern and Western Europe.

The Spanish flu, the most virulent pandemic in human history, caused the death of 50 to 100 million victims between 1917-1919.

Asian flu: in 1957 the influenza virus (H2N2) appeared in China, then spread to Japan and Asia, then reached America and Europe. Ten years later, the strain evolved into H.N2, broke out on the Chinese peninsula and infected half a million people.

Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was the first English doctor to have introduced and scientifically studied the smallpox vaccine, he is considered the father of immunology.

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) developed a vaccine against rabies.

In 1968, effective vaccines were developed.

AIDS, with 3 million deaths per year, is a terrifying complex disease, and is one of the most devastating.

After SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012, the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus appeared and caused the covid-19 pandemic, an emerging infectious disease on November 17, 2019. It has spread throughout the world, and the cure has not yet been established.

INFECTION:

Infection occurs when microorganisms or microbes are transmitted to a living being from another person, an animal or a non-living medium (water, food, object, etc.) and persist there, contamination occurs. Infection occurs when contamination leads to a disease, it can be caused by viruses, bacteria, yeasts or microscopic fungi.

Viruses are responsible for several infections (flu, colds, nasopharyngitis, diarrhea, measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis, AIDS, etc.). They spread throughout the body, viruses can affect the ENT, respiratory, pulmonary or digestive systems.

Bacteria are responsible for diseases or disorders (cystitis, meningitis, pneumonia, abscesses, otitis, diarrhea, etc.).

Infants have few infections because they benefit from a reserve of antibodies from their mother. The lifespan of these antibodies is 6 months, they are also found in breast milk, which is why children fed breast milk are better protected against infections caused by many microorganisms. Each time we overcome an illness, we acquire a specific resistance to this type of infection, the immune system of children is not sufficiently developed.

The viral disease does not declare itself upon exposure, an incubation period lasts from a few hours to a few months with symptoms such as: fever, fatigue and lack of tone. Skin lesions appear in certain diseases (varicocele, measles, rubella, herpes, etc.). The disease is transmitted from individual to individual by saliva, promiscuity, sexual relations, consumption of polluted food or insect bites (mosquitoes or ticks). The entry points for viruses are the skin, the routes: blood (blood transfusion or intravenous drug addiction), respiratory, genital tract, conjunctivitis (swimming pool, contacts).

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