A Present Crisis

Next Part What Past Pandemics Reveal

Hardly a week goes by without reports of another disease outbreak somewhere in the world. News headlines such as the following are commonplace: “Rift Valley Fever Hits South Africa,” “New Strains of Lyme Disease Bacteria Identified, Study Claims,” “AIDS Remains the World’s Worst Epidemic,” “Dengue Fever Surges in the Americas.”

Officials worldwide are now reporting the resurgence of dengue fever. Once a rare disease, it is spreading around the world at an alarming rate. So much so that it has become a major international public health concern. In fact, dengue is a leading cause of hospitalization and death of children in many countries.

The potential for disaster is immense, with 2.5 billion people living in areas where this virus has been transmitted. In fact, an additional 50 to 100 million are already known to be infected by dengue every year. Although it is not yet the fatal hemorrhagic strain, once the disease enters the pandemic level—and there is every indication this could happen—there is greatly increased potential for it to mutate in this direction.

It is now even affecting the U.S., which has never seen such a surge. In the past, dengue had always remained outside American borders. But in the last few years, it has slowly been migrating north, and is now found across Central America and some American border states. According to health authorities, dengue cases in the Americas have increased almost fivefold over the past 30 years, skyrocketing from 2.7 million cases in the 1990s to 4.8 million between the years 2000 and 2007.

This has alarmed authorities on the Texas border, who have also seen a higher number of cases, as has Florida. Puerto Rico also has been suffering, and has now declared a dengue fever epidemic.

Dengue fever is just one of dozens of diseases that health authorities report are increasing! These and other rapidly spreading illnesses paint a grisly picture! Even more dangerous diseases lurk in the shadows. Yet, with dwindling numbers of doctors and nurses entering the medical profession, there is even greater heightened alarm about the nation’s ability to combat them.

The Wall Street Journal reported, “Experts warn there won’t be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the [universal healthcare] law. At current graduation and training rates, the [U.S.] could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.”

Compounding the problem, widespread wars have resulted in influxes of thousands into refugees camps, most of which feature conditions that can only be described as absolute squalor—fertile breeding grounds for disease.

Then there are the polluted overcrowded cities, which often result in contaminated water—which is drunk by most residents. The United Nations estimates that more than half of all hospitalizations are as a result of people not having access to clean water.

Children are among those most affected. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, of the estimated 6.8 billion people on Earth, 2.6 billion—almost 40 percent—“live without access to even a toilet at home and thus are vulnerable to a range of health risks.” This lack of access to proper sanitation, including clean water, “is a major cause of diarrhoea, the second biggest killer of children in developing countries, and leads to other major diseases such as cholera, schistosomiasis, and trachoma.”

Add to this rampant immorality, which has caused an explosion of sexually transmitted diseases, with a host of devastating effects.

As an example of an unprecedented catastrophe still unfolding as of this writing, monsoon rains left 20 percent of Pakistan underwater in the summer of 2010—an area larger than the entire nation of England. Some areas by then had already received 180 percent of the normal precipitation for the whole season. Twenty million Pakistanis have lost their homes, with 3.5 million children at severe risk of infection by cholera and other rapidly spreading diseases. Millions face starvation.

Aside from the flooding, the situation is worsened by a slow dispatch of international aid, due to the global economic downturn and the way the crisis has intensified gradually, rather than arriving in a single dramatic event such as an earthquake or a tsunami. Add to this an already fragile government being further destabilized, with opportunistic terrorist groups, as well as the Pakistani military, taking advantage of the situation and compounding the mayhem.

How Soon?

So obviously this world is in serious trouble. Mankind is teetering on the edge of global disease catastrophe!

Although skeptics say that great global pandemics could not happen again because of improved hygiene and sterilization, this is wishful thinking. Some bacteria have become resistant to antibacterial soaps, and now need stronger and stronger chemicals to kill them. Then there are others that scientists are not able to conquer at all.

Because of this and other factors, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts report that the threat from infectious diseases is increasing: “Infectious disease clearly represents a threat to human security in that it has the potential to affect both the person and his or her ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” a Rand Corporation study stated. It added, “In addition to threatening the health of an individual, the spread of disease can weaken public confidence in government’s ability to respond, have an adverse economic impact, undermine a state’s social order, catalyze regional instability, and pose a strategic threat through bioterrorism and/or bio warfare.”

This prominent research company went on to outline the enormity of the problem facing the world. Consider this: “...The magnitude and nature of the threat is growing because of the emergence of new illnesses such as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), Ebola, and hepatitis C; the increasing inability of modern medicine to respond to resistant and emerging pathogens; and the growing threat of bioterrorism and bio warfare. In addition, human actions amplify these trends by putting us in ever-greater contact with deadly microbes. Globalization, modern medical practices, urbanization, climatic change, and changing social and behavioural patterns all serve to increase the chance that individuals will come in contact with diseases, which they may not be able to survive.

“The AIDS crisis in South Africa provides a disturbing example of how a pathogen can affect security at all levels, from individual to regional and even to global. Approximately one-quarter of the adult population in South Africa is Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) positive, with the disproportionate burden of illness traditionally falling on the most economically and personally productive segment of society. The true impact of the AIDS epidemic is yet to be felt. Deaths from full-blown AIDS are not projected to peak until the period between 2009 and 2012, and the number of HIV infections is still increasing.”

Significantly worsening pestilence—disease epidemics—are yet another confirmation that the “end of the age” is upon us.

H1N1

For the first time in nearly a century, widespread disease epidemics are once again knocking at the doors of America and Europe, as was evidenced by the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

According to one epidemiologist, influenza is the biggest infectious disease threat in the world at this time.

An August 2009 report for the United States President affirmed the expert’s predictions. According to statistics, just this disease alone could infect 30 to 50 percent of the U.S. population—about 90 to 150 million. Authorities reported the H1N1 strain could also:

• Cause 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions during an epidemic, with up to 300,000 patients requiring treatment from intensive care units.

• Kill 30,000 to 90,000 in the United States in a typical winter flu season, concentrated among children and young adults.

• “Pose especially high risks for individuals with certain pre-existing conditions, including pregnant women and patients with neurological disorders or respiratory impairment, diabetes, or severe obesity and possibly for certain populations, such as Native Americans.”

• Reports from the first wave of the H1N1 pandemic revealed that a number of hospitals were swamped with patients in need of emergency care.

On average, swine flu victims required “12 days of mechanical ventilation and frequent use of rescue therapies such as high-frequency oscillatory ventilation, prone positioning, neuromuscular blockade, and inhaled nitric oxide” (Journal of the American Medical Association).

Think! What would happen if 90,000 Americans required the same treatments—just for this type of influenza—living their last days in hospitals? U.S. hospitals would be unable to keep up with the long lines of patients that would be knocking on their doors.

Cases in Britain doubled to 100,000 in one week in July 2009! The virus has had such a significant impact on the country that within minutes of opening, the National Pandemic Flu service website crashed.

Yet the initial estimated figures failed to come to pass. Due to this, many people have already forgotten about the potential death toll.

Still, H1N1 continued to spread. A map of infected areas shows that cases have stricken almost all corners of the world. So far, the only places where H1N1 has not been confirmed are Greenland, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and several smaller African nations.

“Dr Alan Hay, director of the London-based World Influenza Centre, said the extensive summer outbreak in Britain had not followed expected patterns and warned the Department of Health needed to be prepared for a more deadly form of the disease” (Guardian).

Public health professor Dr. John Powell added, “There are enormous parallels with 1918 and our current pandemic. They are spreading at a similar rate, but we don’t know if the virus will mutate. If it does, this is when it could become very dangerous” (Daily Mail).

To many, these numbers seem impossible—up to 90,000 Americans dead in under a year? Those below age 50 have never experienced even the possibility of a pandemic so devastating. Typically, about 40,000 die of all forms of the flu in the U.S. for a whole year.

Without firsthand experience of a nationwide disease pandemic, many can only look to history to understand the type of disease prophesied to come upon the world—and especially the modern nations of Israel—in their lifetime.

For perspective, we turn to the worst recorded flu pandemic of all time: the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. Up to 675,000 in the U.S. were killed—along with between 40 and 100 million worldwide.