Cairo/Ciaro (Arabic: القاهرة transliteration: Al-Qahirah), which means “The Vanquisher” or “The Triumphant”, is the capital city of Egypt. While Al-Qahirah is the official name of the city, in Egyptian Arabic it is typically called simply by the name of the country, Masr (Egypt). It has a metropolitan area population of officially about 11.1 million people. Today, Greater Cairo encompasses various historic towns and modern districts into one of the most populous cities in the world. A journey through Cairo is a virtual time travel: from the Pyramids, Saladin’s Citadel, the Virgin Mary’s Tree, the Sphinx, and ancient Heliopolis, to Al-Azhar, the Mosque of Amr ibn al-A’as, Saqqara, the Hanging Church, and the Cairo Tower. It is the Capital of Egypt, and indeed its history is intertwined with that of the country. Today, Cairo’s official name is Al-Qahira (Cairo), although the name informally used by most Egyptians is “Masr” (Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt). [edit] Era of the Pharaohs (BC 3500 – BC 30) The Great Sphinx of Giza is in Giza near Cairo The Great Sphinx of Giza is in Giza near Cairo Long before the pyramids were built, Egypt’s northern and southern territories were ruled separately. It was about 5000 years ago that a young prince by the name of Narmer (Menes) unified the Red (North) and White (South) kingdoms and became Egypt’s first Pharaoh. As brilliant a politician as he was a warrior, Narmer chose the site of Memphis as his capital. The city was situated at the then Nile Delta tip, along the North-South border, and about 25 km south of today’s downtown Cairo. For the next 800 years or so, the first Capital of the ancient Egyptians prospered under the rule of Zoser, Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren), Menkaure (Mycerinus), Unas, and others. It became one of the most influential and powerful cities in the world, and housed one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Constructed on the Giza plateau, a necropolis of the city of Memphis on the Nile’s west bank, the three Great Pyramids are the ultimate manifestation of political stability and power of the ruler during the Third and Fourth Dynasties. Khufu’s son built 2 of the Giza pyramids.
Be prepared…. What is possible?…. ….2012 end time… Nostra Damus… Mayans… Sumerians… Doomsday… Judge day… Ancient time…. Egypt…. Nibiru…. Niburu…. Peace…. Global warming…. God…. Anunnaki…. Elohim…. Time….. Love…..
Japan’s Underwater Pyramids or Ruins as they have become to be known are a mystery. In all, around eight sites have been discovered.
Introduction
The island of Yonaguni, near Okinawa, Japan has long been a favorite diving spot for swimmers try to get a glance of the numerous hammerhead sharks that swim there. However, in 1995 underwater explorer Kihachirou Aratake found a very large, strange structure under the water. Lying about 60 feet deep, the structure appeared to be man-made. Large steps could be seen, blocks of rock cut at right angles and smoothed. The discovery would send shock waves through the archaeological world.
Ruins
Japan’s Underwater Pyramids or Ruins as they have become to be known are a mystery. In all, around eight sites have been discovered. There are certain features that are very hard to dismiss as natural occurrences. Such as a large, semi-circular structure [1] that almost looks like a park bench. Then there is a large head [2] which appears to have hair and a head dress carved into it. There are also numerous round holes carved into the rock, including some that look as though they were made to support large wooden poles [3]. Again, these are just hard to dismiss, including this head with eyes carved out of it [4]. As stated, the structures are lying on the seabed, around 60 to 100 feet below the surface. So who created them? The last time that these areas were not covered by the ocean was between approximately 8 to 12 thousand years ago, during the last ice age when much of the sea was caught up in the ice caps. At the time Yonaguni formed a landbridge with Taiwan, leading many to speculate that the area is part of the lost continent of Mu, or Lemuria.
Geologists’ and archaeologists’ views
Many geologists and archaeologists contend that the structures are fully natural phenomenon. They point out to the fact that above the sea surface, examples of erosion causing the rocks to form right angles can be seen now. Also they cite that there have been no tools found at any of the pyramids, which would pretty conclusively show that the structures were made by human hands. Also of interest, is that the structures, if man-made, would predate any man-made structures found in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. This has many archaeologists and historians upset, as it would mean that the accepted chronological series of human civilization and developement is wrong. It is also noted that skeptics of the pyramid theory say that the rocks have been smoothed by coral. There is one big problem though with the natural formation theory, and that is that there is no rubble to be found at the bases of these structures, which would be expected if erosion was shearing the rock at right angles.
Another theory that is forwarded is that much of the structures are indeed naturally formed, and that early humans used them and did do some carving on them. It is argued that the most of the steps on the pyramids are much too large for people to climb as well.
The magnificent ancient city of pyramids at Caral in Peru hit the headlines in 2001. The site is a thousand years older than the earliest known civilisation in the Americas and, at 2,627 BC, is as old as the pyramids of Egypt. Many now believe it is the fabled missing link of archaeology – a ‘mother city’. If so, then these extraordinary findings could finally answer one of the great questions of archaeology: why did humans become civilised? A lot has been discussed since this was put out. From Seattle Times (December 23, 2004): “A Peruvian site previously reported as the oldest city in the Americas actually is a much larger complex of as many as 20 cities with huge pyramids and sunken plazas sprawled over three river valleys, researchers report.” Construction began in 3000 B.C (300-400 years before the people of Kemet/Egypt began the Pyramid of Djoser). These cities flourished peacefully for more than 1,200 years.
This is a documentary/drama about the possible consequences for humanity should the “H5N1″ Bird Flu virus mutate into a highly contagious humanised form, as currently predicted, capable of causing the next world wide pandemic.
Pandemic
A pandemic (from Greek παν pan all + δήμος demos people) is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.
Agents spread easily and sustainably among humans.
A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic, because the disease is not infectious or contagious.
Pandemics and notable epidemics through history
There have been a number of significant pandemics recorded in human history, generally zoonoses which came about with domestication of animals, such as influenza and tuberculosis. There have been a number of particularly significant epidemics that deserve mention above the “mere” destruction of cities:
Plague of Athens, 430 BC. Typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops, and a quarter of the population over four years. This disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread; i.e. it killed off its hosts at a rate faster than they could spread it. The exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years. In January 2006, researchers from the University of Athens analyzed teeth recovered from a mass grave underneath the city, and confirmed the presence of bacteria responsible for typhoid.[2]
Antonine Plague, 165–180. Possibly smallpox brought to the Italian peninsula by soldiers returning from the Near East; it killed a quarter of those infected, and up to five million in all.[3] At the height of a second outbreak, the Plague of Cyprian (251–266), which may have been the same disease, 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome.
Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, was the first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague. It started in Egypt, and reached Constantinople the following spring, killing (according to the Byzantine chronicler Procopius) 10,000 a day at its height, and perhaps 40% of the city’s inhabitants. The plague went on to eliminate a quarter to a half of the human population that it struck throughout the known world. [4][5] It caused Europe’s population to drop by around 50% between 550 and 700.[6]
Black Death, started 1300s. Eight hundred years after the last outbreak, the bubonic plague returned to Europe. Starting in Asia, the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe in 1348 (possibly from Italian merchants fleeing fighting in the Crimea), and killed 20 to 30 million Europeans in six years;[7] a third of the total population, and up to a half in the worst-affected urban areas.[8] It was the first of a cycle of European plague epidemics that continued until the 18th century.[9] During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.[10] The Third Pandemic started in China in the middle of the 19th century, spreading plague to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone.[11]
Cholera
First cholera pandemic 1816-1826. Previously restricted to the Indian subcontinent, the pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic.[12] It extended as far as China, Indonesia (where more than 100,000 people succumbed on the island of Java alone) and the Caspian Sea before receding. Deaths in India between 1817 and 1860 are estimated to have exceeded 15 million persons. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917. Russian deaths during a similar time period exceeded 2 million.[13]
Second cholera pandemic 1829–1851. Reached Russia (see Cholera Riots), Hungary (about 100,000 deaths) and Germany in 1831, London in 1832 (more than 55,000 persons died in the United Kingdom),[14] France, Canada (Ontario), and United States (New York) in the same year,[15] and the Pacific coast of North America by 1834. A two-year outbreak began in England and Wales in 1848 and claimed 52,000 lives.[16] It is believed that over 150,000 Americans died of cholera between 1832 and 1849.[17]
Third pandemic 1852–1860. Mainly affected Russia, with over a million deaths. In 1852, cholera spread east to Indonesia and later invaded China and Japan in 1854. The Philippines were infected in 1858 and Korea in 1859. In 1859, an outbreak in Bengal once again led to the transmission of the disease to Iran, Iraq, Arabia and Russia.[18]
Fourth pandemic 1863–1875. Spread mostly in Europe and Africa. At least 30,000 of the 90,000 Mecca pilgrims fell victim to the disease. Cholera claimed 90,000 lives in Russia in 1866.[19]
In 1866, there was an outbreak in North America. It killed some 50,000 Americans.[17]
In 1892, cholera contaminated the water supply of Hamburg, Germany, and caused 8606 deaths.[22]
Sixth pandemic 1899–1923. Had little effect in Europe because of advances in public health, but Russia was badly affected again (more than 500,000 people dying of cholera during the first quarter of the 20th century).[23] The sixth pandemic killed more than 800,000 in India. The 1902-1904 cholera epidemic claimed over 200,000 lives in the Philippines.[24]
The Greek physician Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine”, first described influenza in 412 BC.[25]
The first influenza pandemic was recorded in 1580 and since then influenza pandemics occurred every 10 to 30 years.[26][27][28]
Influenza pandemics in 1729-1730, 1732-1733, 1781-1782, 1830, 1833-1834, 1847-1848.[29]
The “Asiatic Flu“, 1889–1890. Was first reported in May of 1889 in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. By October, it had reached Tomsk and the Caucasus. It rapidly spread west and hit North America in December 1889, South America in February–April 1890, India in February-March 1890, and Australia in March–April 1890. It was purportedly caused by the H2N8 type of flu virus, and had a very high attack and mortality rate. About 1 million people died in this pandemic.”[30]
The “Spanish flu“, 1918–1919. First identified early in March 1918 in US troops training at Camp Funston, Kansas. By October 1918, it had spread to become a world-wide pandemic on all continents, and eventually infected 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. Unusually deadly and virulent, it ended nearly as quickly as it began, vanishing completely within 18 months. In six months, some 50 million were dead;[31] some estimates put the total of those killed worldwide at over twice that number.[32] An estimated 17 million died in India, 675,000 in the United States[33] and 200,000 in the UK. The virus was recently reconstructed by scientists at the CDC studying remains preserved by the Alaskan permafrost. They identified it as a type of H1N1 virus.[citation needed]
The “Asian Flu“, 1957–58. An H2N2 caused about 70,000 deaths in the United States. First identified in China in late February 1957, the Asian flu spread to the United States by June 1957. It caused about 2 million deaths globally.[34]
The “Hong Kong Flu“, 1968–69. An H3N2 caused about 34,000 deaths in the United States. This virus was first detected in Hong Kong in early 1968, and spread to the United States later that year. This pandemic of 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people worldwide.[35] Influenza A (H3N2) viruses still circulate today.
Typhus
Typhus is sometimes called “camp fever” because of its pattern of flaring up in times of strife. (It is also known as “gaol fever” and “ship fever”, for its habits of spreading wildly in cramped quarters, such as jails and ships.) Emerging during the Crusades, it had its first impact in Europe in 1489, in Spain. During fighting between the Christian Spaniards and the Muslims in Granada, the Spanish lost 3,000 to war casualties, and 20,000 to typhus. In 1528, the French lost 18,000 troops in Italy, and lost supremacy in Italy to the Spanish. In 1542, 30,000 people died of typhus while fighting the Ottomans in the Balkans.
In the Thirty Years’ War, an estimated 8 million Germans were wiped out by bubonic plague and typhus fever.[36] The disease also played a major role in the destruction of Napoleon’s Grande Armée in Russia in 1812. Felix Markham thinks that 450,000 soldiers crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812, of whom less than 40,000 recrossed in anything like a recognizable military formation.[37] In early 1813 Napoleon raised a new army of 500,000 to replace his Russian losses. In the campaign of that year over 219,000 of Napoleon’s soldiers were to die of typhus.[38] Typhus played a major factor in the Irish Potato Famine. During the World War I, typhus epidemics have killed over 150,000 in Serbia. There were about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus in Russia from 1918 to 1922.[38] Typhus also killed numerous prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps and Soviet prisoner of war camps during World War II. More than 3.5 million Soviet POWs died in the Nazi custody out of 5.7 million.[39]
HIV went directly from Africa to Haiti, then spread to the United States and much of the rest of the world beginning around 1969.[40]HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is currently a pandemic, with infection rates as high as 25% in southern and eastern Africa. In 2006 the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women in South Africa was 29.1%.[41] Effective education about safer sexual practices and bloodborne infection precautions training have helped to slow down infection rates in several African countries sponsoring national education programs. Infection rates are rising again in Asia and the Americas. AIDS could kill 31 million people in India and 18 million in China by 2025, according to projections by U.N. population researchers.[42] AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90-100 million by 2025.[43]
Smallpox
Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the Variola virus. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century.[44] During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.[45][46] As recently as early 1950s an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year.[47] After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979. To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated.[48]
Measles
Historically, measles was very prevalent throughout the world, as it is highly contagious. According to the National Immunization Program, 90% of people were infected with measles by age 15. Until the vaccine was developed in 1963, measles was considered to be deadlier than smallpox.[49] In roughly the last 150 years, measles has been estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide.[50] In 2000 alone, measles killed some 777,000 worldwide. There were some 40 million cases of measles globally that year.[51]
Measles is an endemic disease, meaning that it has been continually present in a community, and many people develop resistance. In populations that have not been exposed to measles, exposure to a new disease can be devastating. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of the natives who had previously survived smallpox.[52] The disease had ravaged Mexico, Central America, and the Inca civilization.[53]
Encounters between European explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. Disease killed the entire native (Guanches) population of the Canary Islands in the 16th century. Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors.[54]Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 1600s. In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans.[55] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.[56] Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases.[57] Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous peoples had no such immunity.[58]
Smallpox devastated the native population of Australia, killing around 50% of Indigenous Australians in the early years of British colonisation.[59] It also killed many New ZealandMāori.[60] As late as 1848–49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 Hawaiians are estimated to have died of measles, whooping cough and influenza. Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly wiped out the native population of Easter Island.[61] In 1875, measles killed over 40,000 Fijians, approximately one-third of the population.[62] The disease decimated the Andamanese population.[63]Ainu population decreased drastically in the 19th century, due in large part to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into Hokkaido.[64]
Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus‘ voyages. The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions of Europe.[65] The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today. Syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance.[66] Disease killed more British soldiers in India than war. Between 1736 and 1834 only some 10% of East India Company’s officers survived to take the final voyage home.[67]
As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organized a mission (the Balmis expedition) to transport the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies, and establish mass vaccination programs there.[68] By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans.[69] From the beginning of the 20th century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers.[70] The sleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk.[71] In the 20th century, the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to lessening of the mortality rate in many countries due to medical advances.[72]World population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to an estimated 6.7 billion today.[73]
Tuberculosis
One–third of the world’s current population has been infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and new infections occur at a rate of one per second.[74] About one in ten of these latent infections will eventually progress to active disease, which, if left untreated, kills more than half of its victims. Annually, 8 million people become ill with tuberculosis, and 2 million people die from the disease worldwide.[75] In the 19th century, tuberculosis killed an estimated one-quarter of the adult population of Europe;[76] and by 1918 one in six deaths in France were still caused by TB. In the 20th century, tuberculosis killed approximately 100 million people.[50]
Leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, is caused by a bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae. It is a chronic disease with an incubation period of up to five years. Since 1985, 15 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy.[77] In 2002, 763,917 new cases were detected. It is estimated that there are between one and two million people permanently disabled because of leprosy.[78]
Historically, leprosy has affected mankind since at least 600 BC, and was well-recognized in the civilizations of ancient China, Egypt and India.[79] During the High Middle Ages, Western Europe witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of leprosy.[80][81] Numerous leprosaria, or leper hospitals, sprang up in the Middle Ages; Matthew Paris estimated that in the early 13th century there were 19,000 across Europe.[82]
Malaria
Malaria is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria.[83]Drug resistance poses a growing problem in the treatment of malaria in the 21st century, since resistance is now common against all classes of antimalarial drugs, with the exception of the artemisinins.[84]
Malaria was once common in most of Europe and North America, where it is now for all purposes non-existent.[85]Plasmodium falciparum became a real threat to colonists and indigenous people alike when it was introduced into the Americas along with the slave trade. Malaria devastated the Jamestown colony and regularly ravaged the South and Midwest. During the American Civil War, there were over 1.2 million cases of malaria among soldiers of both sides.[86]
Yellow fever
Yellow fever has been a source of several devastating epidemics.[87] Cities as far north as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston were hit with epidemics. In 1793, the largest yellow fever epidemic in U.S. history killed as many as 5,000 people in Philadelphia—roughly 10% of the population.[88] About half of the residents had fled the city, including President George Washington. Aproximately 300,000 people are believed to have died from yellow fever in Spain during the 19th century.[89] In colonial times, West Africa became known as “the white man’s grave” because of malaria and yellow fever.[90]
Unknown causes
There are also a number of unknown diseases that were extremely serious but have now vanished, so the etiology of these diseases cannot be established. The cause of English Sweat in 16th-century England, which struck people down in an instant and was more greatly feared than even the bubonic plague, is still unknown.
Some Viral Hemorrhagic Fever causing agents like Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever are highly contagious and deadly diseases, with the theoretical potential to become pandemics. Their ability to spread efficiently enough to cause a pandemic is limited, however, as transmission of these viruses requires close contact with the infected vector, and the vector only has a short time before death or serious illness. Furthermore, the short time between a vector becoming infectious and the onset of symptoms allows medical professionals to quickly quarantine vectors, and prevent them from carrying the pathogen elsewhere. Genetic mutations could occur, which could elevate their potential for causing widespread harm; thus close observation by contagious disease specialists is merited.
Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, sometimes referred to as “superbugs“, may contribute to the re-emergence of diseases which are currently well-controlled. For example, cases of tuberculosis that are resistant to traditionally effective treatments remain a cause of great concern to health professionals. Every year, nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are estimated to occur worldwide.[91] The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that approximately 50 million people worldwide are infected with multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB), with 79 percent of those cases resistant to three or more antibiotics. In 2005, 124 cases of MDR TB were reported in the United States. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) was identified in Africa in 2006, and subsequently discovered to exist in 49 countries, including the United States. About 40,000 new cases of XDR-TB emerge every year, the World Health Organization estimates.[92]
The plague bacterium could develop drug-resistance and become a major health threat.[93]Plague epidemics have occurred throughout human history, causing over 200 million deaths worldwide. The ability to resist many of the antibiotics used against plague has been found so far in only a single case of the disease in Madagascar.[94]
In the past 20 years, common bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Serratia marcescens and Enterococcus, have developed resistance to various antibiotics such as vancomycin, as well as whole classes of antibiotics, such as the aminoglycosides and cephalosporins. Antibiotic-resistant organisms have become an important cause of healthcare-associated (nosocomial) infections (HAI). In addition, infections caused by community-acquired strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in otherwise healthy individuals, have become more frequent in recent years.
SARS
In 2003, there were concerns that SARS, a new, highly contagious form of atypical pneumonia caused by a coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV, might become pandemic. Rapid action by national and international health authorities such as the World Health Organization helped slow transmission, and eventually broke the chain of transmission, ending the localized epidemics before they could become a pandemic. The disease has not been eradicated, however, and could re-emerge unexpectedly, warranting monitoring and case reporting of suspicious cases of atypical pneumonia.
Wild aquatic birds are the natural hosts for a range of influenza A viruses. Occasionally, viruses are transmitted from these species to other species, and may then cause outbreaks in domestic poultry or (rarely) give rise to a human pandemic. [95][96]
In February 2004, avian influenza virus was detected in birds in Vietnam, increasing fears of the emergence of new variant strains. It is feared that if the avian influenza virus combines with a human influenza virus (in a bird or a human), the new subtype created could be both highly contagious and highly lethal in humans. Such a subtype could cause a global influenza pandemic, similar to the Spanish Flu, or the lower mortality pandemics such as the Asian Flu and the Hong Kong Flu.
From October 2004 to February 2005, some 3,700 test kits of the 1957 Asian Flu virus were accidentally spread around the world from a lab in the US.[97]
In May 2005, scientists urgently call nations to prepare for a global influenza pandemic that could strike as much as 20% of the world’s population.[98]
In October 2005, cases of the avian flu (the deadly strain H5N1) were identified in Turkey. EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said: “We have received now confirmation that the virus found in Turkey is an avian flu H5N1 virus. There is a direct relationship with viruses found in Russia, Mongolia and China.” Cases of bird flu were also identified shortly thereafter in Romania, and then Greece. Possible cases of the virus have also been found in Croatia, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom.[99]
By November 2007, numerous confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain had been identified across Europe[100]. However, by the end of October only 59 people had died as a result of H5N1 which was atypical of previous influenza pandemics.
Avian flu cannot yet be categorized as a “pandemic”, because the virus cannot yet cause sustained and efficient human-to-human transmission. Cases so far are recognized to have been transmitted from bird to human, but as of December 2006 there have been very few (if any) cases of proven human-to-human transmission. Regular influenza viruses establish infection by attaching to receptors in the throat and lungs, but the avian influenza virus can only attach to receptors located deep in the lungs of humans, requiring close, prolonged contact with infected patients, and thus limiting person-to-person transmission.
With the 2009 outbreak of Swine Influenza A (H1N1), there is a fear that it possesses pandemic potential.
Biological warfare
In 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Theodosia). After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe.[101]
The Native American population was decimated after contact with the Old World due to the introduction of many different fatal diseases. There is, however, only one documented case of germ warfare, involving British commander Lord Jeffrey Amherst and Swiss-British officer Colonel Henry Bouquet, whose correspondence included a reference to the idea of giving smallpox-infected blankets to Indians as part of an incident known as Pontiac’s Rebellion which occurred during the Siege of Fort Pitt (1763) late in the French and Indian War.[102] It is uncertain whether this documented British attempt successfully infected the Indians.[103]
During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted human experimentation on thousands, mostly Chinese. In military campaigns, the Japanese army used biological weapons on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.[104]
^ Diamond, Jared (1997), Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-03891-2
^ Dixon, Never Come to Peace, 152–55; McConnell, A Country Between, 195–96; Dowd, War under Heaven, 190. For historians who believe the attempt at infection was successful, see Nester, Haughty Conquerors”, 112; Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 447–48.
Steward’s “The Next Global Threat: Pandemic Influenza”.
American Lung Association. (2007, April), Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis Fact Sheet. As retrieved from www.lungusa.org/site/pp.aspx?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35815 November 29, 2007.
Larson, E. (2007). Community Factors in the Development of Antibiotic Resistance. [Electronic Version]. Annual Review of Public Health. 28 pp. 437-447. As accessed November 29, 2007.
Bancroft, E. A., (2007, October). Antimicrobial Resistance It’s Not Just for Hospitals. [Electronic Version]. JAMA 298(15) pp. 1803-1804. As accessed November 29, 2007.
The Assassination of King Tut Three thousand years ago, a boy became king. Tutankhamun, the most famous of all the Egyptian pharaohs, died before his 20th birthday. The cause of death: a mystery. Even though the crime occurred over 3,000 years ago, evidence still remains. Examine the clues and see if you can name the prime suspect. You be the detective and evaluate the clues. Find out about the victim and the prime suspects. Whodunit? Was it Tut’s ambitious commander-in-chief of the most powerful army in the known world, fearful that Tut’s youth and physical weaknesses might leave Egypt vulnerable to attack? Perhaps Maya, Tut’s chief finance minister and the man who held the country’s purse strings, felt his wealth threatened by the young king. Did Ankhesenamun, Tut’s bride since childhood, blame him for two heartbreaking miscarriages? Or could it have been Ay, Tut’s prime minister, advisor, protector and father figure, who wanted the boy king cast aside in his own insatiable quest for power?
Egyptologist James Henry Brested once called Akhenaten “the first individual in history.” Others view him as a prophet of monotheism. High praise indeed for a pharaoh whose reign was scandalous, and whose name was eradicated from his family’s temples. In “The Rebel Pharaoh,” meet the man born Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten to signify his sole allegiance to Aten, forsaking Egypt’s traditional pantheon. See the dramatic results of his slogan “Living in Truth,” as Akhenaten broke from 2,000 years of artistic tradition to create art and sculpture with stylised forms and exaggerated features, perhaps reflecting his own physical deformity.
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