Just Finished Reading: Infectious Disease – A Very Short
Introduction by Marta L Wayne & Benjamin N Bolker (FP: 2015)
Continuing my latest (Pandemic Edition) book blitz this slim
volume delved into what the previous book on the Immune System needs to deal
with – infections & bugs. Or at least viruses and bacteria which have
fought a very long war to propagate themselves at the expense of their hosts
(quite often us or the animals and plants we use to survive).
Naturally anyone who has been paying attention to the news
this year has picked up a fair bit of medical jargon about transmission rates
and R numbers – I know I have. If you’ve struggled to understand exactly what
that all means then struggle no more! This book makes such things easy to
understand by the use of filters – encounter and compatibility – that help
describe the dynamics of epidemics as well as the important distinctions of
virulence, resistance and tolerance.
Moving on to case studies the book covers the
main ones we’ve all heard about – influenza, HIV, Cholera and Malaria as well
as one I’d never heard of which was a fungus in amphibians which has only
recently emerged onto the world stage (called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis if
you must know!). Each disease in turn is covered with respect to origin,
history and what it does to bypass any filters which exist to prevent its
spread and each, apart from the amphibian fungus, is looked at for its impact
on humanity. All very interesting stuff. Finally the authors look ahead – from 2015
that is – at the emerging and re-emerging diseases that are all too clearly on
the horizon with anti-bacterial resistance and the double whammy of habitat
destruction and ongoing climate change. Despite the hopes of scientists in the
1970’s we are not going to be disease free for the foreseeable future and
should prepare for the inevitable. If nothing else the ongoing Covid-19
pandemic has taught us that we were very clearly not prepared for a global
pandemic. Luckily for us the overall lethality of this admittedly highly
infectious disease has been thankfully quite low in absolute terms. A clearer
warning shot cannot, I think, have been heard around the world. Looking back
over history we have seen clearly what infectious disease can do to
individuals, families and whole civilisations. We very much need to learn from
these horrid experiences and up our game. Definitely a must read for anyone
interested in current and, no doubt at all, future events. Recommended.
5 comments:
sound advice, so it will most likely be ignored...
This one sounds promising. I'm SORELY tempted to buy a game called Bio, Inc which is a kind of medical simulator -- the player has a human patient with various symptoms, and the goal is to figure out by testing and responses to treatment what the patient has, and so ..cure them. I will probably succumb to temptation even though it's more of a time-consuming sit-and-think kind of game, and I STILL haven't figured out how to destroy the world with a zombie virus in Plague, Inc. I even tried copying someone else's successful playthrough, but the RNG is a serious factor.
@ Mudpuddle: The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.
@ Stephen: The VSI books are pretty much universally good. After just under 100 read so far I'd say only one was bad and only a few more poor - or not what I was expecting. That's good reading! This one is only 106 pages so is a swift read too.
I looked at Plague Inc which seemed like a scream. Playing the virus rather than the heroic humans is a nice switch around. Still *heavily* into ONI and have even persuaded two of my friends to start playing it too! One has become a bit obsessed by it. 124 hours game play for me so far... [grin]
Good knowledge to have, I would say.
@ Judy: With my 'butterfly mind' I can sometimes latch onto something I feel a lack of knowledge in and just go for it. With 'the current situation' I certainly feel the need to know more about this sort of thing. Three more to come in this particular blitz.
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