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Latest Infectious Disease News<\/h3>\n
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FRIDAY, July 24, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
In a finding that could inform the world’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, researchers say they determined how public health measures beat an outbreak of typhus<\/a> in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.<\/p>\n Using mathematical modeling and historical documents, the study showed how community health programs and social distancing beat back the epidemic.<\/p>\n In 1941, the Nazis confined more than 450,000 Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland.<\/p>\n “With poor conditions, rampant starvation and a population density five to 10 times higher than any city in the world today, the Warsaw Ghetto presented the perfect breeding ground for bacteria to spread typhus<\/a>, and it ripped through the mainly Jewish population there like a wildfire,” said researcher Lewi Stone, from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.<\/p>\n As many as 120,000 people were infected with typhus, and up to 30,000 died from it. Many more died from starvation or a combination of both.<\/p>\n Typhus is an uncommon disease caused by a bacteria spread through contact with infected body lice<\/a>. Symptoms include fever<\/a>, headache<\/a>, rapid breathing<\/a>, body aches, rash<\/a>, cough<\/a>, nausea<\/a>, vomiting<\/a> and confusion<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Then, in October 1941, as a harsh winter was beginning and just as typhus rates would be expected to skyrocket, the epidemic curve suddenly and unexpectedly nose-dived to extinction,” Stone explained in a university news release. “It was inexplicable at the time, and many thought it was a miracle or irrational.”<\/p>\n Stopping disease transmission was likely due to behavioral changes, Stone said.<\/p>\n “Fortunately, many of the anti-epidemic activities and interventions are documented, and it turns out that Warsaw Ghetto had many experienced doctors and specialists,” he said.<\/p>\n Stone found there were training courses about public hygiene and infectious diseases, hundreds of lectures on the fight against typhus and a medical university for young people.<\/p>\n Hygiene and cleanliness were urged, and sometimes enforced. Social distancing was considered common sense, as was quarantining.<\/p>\n “In the end, it appears that the prolonged determined efforts of the ghetto doctors and anti-epidemic efforts of community workers paid off,” Stone said. “There is no other way we can find to explain the data.”<\/p>\n The report was published July 24 in the journal Science Advances<\/i>.<\/p>\n — Steven Reinberg<\/p>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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