Popular Global Virus Pandemics (Essay Sample)

Introduction
Virus outbreaks are said to happen when a viral illness causes unexpected repercussions. These may include a high rate of disease diagnoses and mortality rate. They often last for longer durations of time and spreads over substantial geographical areas (Alex & Nicole, pp 1). Outbreaks are described as pandemics when the virus infections and diseases spread quickly on the global continent. The world health organization is solely responsible for declaring diseases and virus infections as pandemic and gives out guidelines on what is expected of the public.
All groups of species are a primary target for virus infections. However, viruses are considered to be lethal to the human body. Once the virus enters the human body, the body immediately starts to weaken and showcases the viral infection symptoms. Some viruses can be controlled and easily treatable, while others have more damaging effects on the human body and lead to fatal incidents. Once the virus attacks the human body, it can mutate and change further to different forms of virus (Alex & Nicole, pp 1). Hence it becomes crucially important that individuals seek immediate medical attention once one has clear symptoms of any viral infection. The human immune system is designed explicitly with sufficient antibodies to provide the needed proteins for fighting the pathogens that come about as a result of the viral infection. Historically, vaccination has been the primary response plan for all governments globally to ensure the citizens are well protected against certain viral infections. Once one receives the recommended vaccination, the body becomes more robust and resistant to that particular virus. Mostly virus vaccination happens at the very infant stage to ensure that one grows up well immune.
Statistically, virus outbreaks have showcased the ability to cause substantial negative impacts that are lethal to the human species and all groups of organisms. The negative impacts caused by various are disturbingly irreversible. These include millions of death, wiping away huge target populations, causing paralysis of the global health care system, global recessionary effects as economies fail, and psychological distress to the victims of the virus, their families, and the health care workers. Throughout this paper, the focus will be mainly on the various virus outbreaks that have existed to date, the origins of such viruses, the vaccinations offered for such viruses, a discussion on what is being done to contain such viruses, and a personal reflection on the issue of viruses outbreaks.
Popular Global Virus Pandemics
In the last few decades, the world has experienced unfrequented virus outbreaks, which soon are announced to be epidemics by the world health organization. Each time the pandemic happens, the world is faced with trivial repercussions, with either public health sectors and the economies being the most hit sectors. In the last 20 years alone, the specific virus outbreaks that have pandermically affected the world, including the Ebola virus, the influenza virus and the severe acute respiratory virus (SARS), and the current covid 19 viruses that are currently ravaging the world, causing significant instability is all sectors. Before this, there was the Spanish flu in 1918, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the west Nile .the number of covid 19 virus infections are increasingly becoming more and more every single day with millions dead already. It is indeed a virus that health experts and research analysts say will eventually cause similar overall effects to those caused by the sars virus if it not worse.
SARS Virus Outbreak
This virus was first reported in China in 2009, specifically in Wuhan. Wuhan happens to be china’s largest populated metropolitan area with thousands of Chinese nations and nationals from other countries. The virus spread to approximately 24 countries, and its negatives effects were quickly felt by these countries. Canada, Singapore, and Hong Kong were the worst hit by the virus.
After a long period of embattlement with the sars virus, the affected countries could contain it. Several containment measures were proved useful at the time. These include restricted movement policies, mandatory quarantine and isolation of sars patients, quarantine of the sars patients contact list, syndrome surveillance, and in the very extreme scenarios, community quarantine measures were applied.
Spanish Influenza Virus Outbreak
This is another type of virus whose effects have been quite lethal. It happened at a time when globally, the world was unprepared for such type of health pandemics. Various strains of the influence flu virus were first reported in 1918 (Tsoucalas et al., pp 23). The Spanish flu is caused by a virus named H1N1. Globally, scientists are still contending o where this virus originated from. It becomes difficult to tell the root cause since, at the time, technology was not quite advanced to be able to detect the root origin effectively. However, various scholars have quoted that this virus originated from Spain and reached noted states the same year. The first United States national to have the virus was military personnel.
The center for disease and control reports; this is the worst virus the world has experienced to date. Within one year, the virus had huge damaging effects. Cumulatively, the total numbers of documented victims were 500 million people, with a third of this succumbing to the virus (Tsoucalas et al., pp 25). A virus that can wipe away such a significant chunk of the human population is something no one could wish for again.
Containing the virus at the time was done through isolation practices, good hygienic practices, quarantine, use of sanitizers, and social distancing practices with all public gatherings banned globally (Tsoucalas et al., pp 27). No vaccine was used to contain the virus.
Ebola Virus Outbreak
This deadly virus was first reported in central Africa as early as 1976. The outbreak in Central Africa left thousands dead. It is a virus that has statistically shown to affect the African continent the most. The virus quickly spread, and West Africa became its next hit spot area in Africa (Alex & Nicole, pp 4). The mode of transmission of this virus-like many others, is through fluids. Therefore, the world health organization advises citizens of these highly prone areas to avoid close contact with people since once body fluids are transferred, one could easily be infected with the ebola virus.
Just like many other infectious viruses, containment of ebola was done by making sure there were adequate treatment centers to attend to the patients promptly, making sure the victims were isolated, social distancing was highly practiced, everyone used face masks, gloves, and protective gears to ensure safety for all.
Coronavirus outbreak
This is a virus that was first reported in China, Wuhan metropolitan province, in 2019 December. Currently, the virus has spread in nearly all countries globally, having traversed all continents (Sterpetti, pp 1092). The world health care system is facing its hugest health crisis battle, having not been prepared for such an occurrence at the beginning of a new decade. The corona virus's effects are currently unquantifiable wilt millions dead and millions of families languishing as their r source of livelihood is taken away due to containment measures.
The virus is currently being contained through quarantine measures, isolation of sick patients, and adherence to other preventative measures recommended by the world health organization, such as wearing face masts and hygienic keeping through frequent sanitizing (Sterpetti, pp 1093). Scientists have already come up with vaccines that they believe will help prevent coronavirus further transmission. The world health organization is, however, yet to confirm the effectiveness of these newly established vaccines.
HIV AIDS Pandemic
The HIV aids virus pandemic first came into existence in 1981. Scientific evidence shows that the virus came about as a result of two viruses the HIV-1 and HIV-2. The two viruses are biologically said to belong to the lentiviruses class. The pandemic started when the vast majority of bisexual males started being highly infected and dying from various opportunistic infections. This prompted scientists to research further what was going on and why the similar sudden deaths (Alex & Nicole, pp 2). They found out that the virus is spread through sexual intercourse. The virus is now three decades old, and its effects having been felt throughout these years. It is indeed a deadly virus, with the world health organization’s records indicating that nearly 25 million persons have died due to this virus to date. The total number of infected people globally is approximately 60 million. This means 60million families in the world are affected by the repercussions of this virus.
Currently, the virus is contained by the use of antiretroviral therapy and civil education. Antiretroviral medications have been able to sufficiently reduce the rampant death cases from the virus and prolong the victims' lives even further. Hiv aids patients are currently more appreciative of this treatment since it makes their immune system more robust. If they follow the treatment correctly, their cd4 count becomes good in that they cannot even infect another person (Alex & Nicole, pp 2). Therapy is an essential tool for containing these viruses; when then victims are effectively counseled by a therapist, they understand that having the virus s not a death sentence and why they must appreciate and take care f themselves and their loved ones. This is instrumental in helping the ...