Published: November 11, 2009 04:22 pm      

H1N1 lessons can be learned from epidemics of centuries past

Today the Mercer County Health Department is offering H1N1 (swine flu) vaccinations in the county’s four high schools. It’s just one step in an effort to get more at-risk individuals inoculated against the virus. The plan is to visit every school in the county before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Flu season is usually a hectic time in both the Virginias, but this year’s dose of swine flu is giving the season some extra anxiety. Parents are naturally worried about their children catching this flu variety, especially since it has proven fatal in some cases. It’s likely that some families kept their children home from school rather than risk exposing them to H1N1.

Fortunately, we haven’t seen any widespread panic, and I hope the situation stays this way. I think human beings have a deep rooted fear of disease; when you think about past epidemics, it’s pretty easy to understand why a new virus can spread around some extra anxiety.

For instance, the “Black Plague” in Europe wiped out almost a third of the population there a few hundred years ago. Medicine as we understand it now was virtually nonexistent, and the people back then didn’t even understand how diseases are spread from one person to another. I think some physicians of the Middle Ages thought smells transmitted diseases.

In other words, the plague’s victims were virtually clueless about epidemics.

Another plague of sorts, now called pandemics, happened just after World War I. Americans who went off to fight in France contracted what was called the “Spanish Flu” and brought it home to America. The disease swept across the globe and killed about 30 million people. Hardly anybody remembers it today, but it may be because the war and its huge casualty lists were still fresh in everybody’s minds. Still, the pandemic probably enforced that fear of disease.

Hollywood has done its part by making plagues the stars of many a horror movie. I still remember “The Andromeda Strain” back in the 1970s. Based on the novel by the late Michael Crichton, it told the story of a military satellite that brings back a deadly organism from outer space. The stuff, dubbed Andromeda, wipes out a little Arizona town in minutes. The only survivors are an old man and a newborn baby. Naturally, scientists at a super secret lab called Wildfire find a cure just in time.

Movies such as the “Dawn of the Dead” series and “28 Days Later” play on the disease horror theme, too. People catch a disease that turns them into homicidal zombies that, naturally enough, spread the disease and create even more homicidal zombies. It’s a situation that would be lousy for the human race, but good for movie franchises.

Why are we so afraid of diseases? It may be because we can’t see them coming. We can see monsters like Godzilla approaching, but a virus is unseen and unheard. Nobody knows they’ve been touched by a potentially dangerous bug until the first symptoms appear. That factor gives disease a little more fear generating power.

Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about disease quite as much as we did a few decades ago. Vaccinations, antibiotics and other medicines help us combat and even prevent diseases. Sanitation, new food technologies, and refrigeration do even more to reduce the grip of disease. We just don’t have to worry about epidemics as much as we did in the past. Modern technology, a better understanding of disease, and common sense precautions have helped tremendously. Some hand sanitizer might have made ancient plagues a lot less dreadful.

This year’s swine flu isn’t a plague. It’s a reason to be careful, but it’s not a reason for panic. I don’t foresee any mass evacuations, overflowing hospitals or anything else that makes a great movie. The H1N1 virus might inspire a good documentary, but not a Hollywood blockbuster capable of raking in $100 million.

I’ll keep covering sneezes, using hand sanitizer and washing my hands whenever necessary. And I’ll get a vaccination when I have the chance. If we just use the experience and common sense generated by the epidemics of centuries past, we will weather this year’s flu season just fine.

Greg Jordan is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at gjordan@bdtonline.com.