Having survived perilous escapes from war zones, refugees find themselves assailed anew in Europe by germs proliferating in crowded, unsanitary camps that could become outbreak hotspots, infectious disease experts have warned.
Their systems weakened by physical exhaustion, a lack of safe food, clean water and medicine, refugees are sitting-duck targets for entirely preventable diseases that can scar, maim, even kill.
Most of these illnesses have long been relegated to Europe’s past: scabies, measles, tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid fever, concerned doctors and academics told a conference in Amsterdam this weekend.
But several have now reemerged, wreaking havoc among Europe’s bulging migrant settlements, from where they could regain a foothold in the broader population.
It is amazing to see in real time what we have only heard of before. Resources restrict, a pandemic emerges as if by magic, it sweeps through an area, and then a Renaissance happens, and the cycles begins anew. Here it is in its earliest stages. Right now pathogens are culling through their own ranks, looking for that magic mutation that will spread wildly and bypass immune systems all along the way. Whether they win or not, it is all a numbers game. Add more shortage, the microbes multiply, the chance of that magic mutation rises, and the probabilities shift toward death.
However what will really make a little pandemic into a mass murderer is that in these times of ease, we have created a societal machine that, under optimal conditions, can flood resources into every nook and cranny of the nation. Many areas of the nation have exploded in numbers while exploiting this system, and becoming entirely dependent upon it to survive.
Some estimates are that if our supply chains were disrupted, 90% of our population would be dead within a year. From a food generation system which begins with big agra’s magician-like ability to use mass quantities of chemicals to produce a flood of food from soil no mortal could conjure food within, to a computerized supply chain that delivers food exactly where it is needed on demand, if one chink in that chain breaks, the entire system becomes an exercise in futility. With a pathogen, everyone would need to self isolate, eliminating vast swaths of the supply chain all at once. With that shortage comes anarchy, which only makes things even worse.
This is not the Apocalypse. It is not even close. Food is everywhere, medicine is freely available, and we are all living on easy street. Even so, we can see pockets where disease is brewing, selecting among it’s many random permutations for the one which most effectively bypasses human immunity and spreads with maximal efficiency.
AUSTIN, Ind. — From the start of the HIV outbreak here, health officials emphasized that nothing set Scott County apart from many other rural communities where opioid drug use had become an epidemic.
This could happen anywhere, people were told.
Many people here had viewed HIV as a big-city disease, something that might afflict people in San Francisco or New York. But Austin is a small city of about 4,000 people 40 miles north of Louisville, Ky.
Then in February 2015, the first 30 cases of HIV were reported. By mid-March, the number had climbed to 55…
Now, a year later, the outbreak is at 190 cases. But the sickness runs deeper…
Drug use here is still rampant. Some users shoot up alongside their children or even their children’s children…
Most of those affected had no health insurance. Most would be eligible for the state’s Healthy Indiana Plan, which would cover the cost of care, drugs and potentially substance abuse counseling.
But enrolling them would not be easy. Many lacked even an ID to sign up.
The state opened a one-stop shop that would offer a variety of services, including HIV testing, immunizations, and substance abuse and counseling referrals. The shop also would help people get birth certificates.
Those who tested HIV positive could seek medical care that would provide drugs capable of reducing their viral load and ending their ability to pass the infection to others. Those at risk who still used would have access to clean needles to help prevent them from catching the disease.
Sexual partners of those who were HIV positive could start medicine known to help prevent HIV infection.
The only thing suppressing the spread of this and keeping the infected alive, is free resource availability. Without that money for people whose whole job is monitoring each individual HIV case, this would already have flared out of control. Without the money to provide free healthcare and medicine to people who don’t even have birth certificates, all of these people die.
I have to believe this is coming, and perhaps very quickly after the money for this machinery evaporates in the collapse. At that point, you will see a massive expansion of amygdalae, and a massive return to conservatism, loyalty, and national identity.
That will be the Apocalypse, and it will be oddly relieving for many.
Just not for the rabbits.
And there are women proud of getting herpes.
https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/why-should-i-date-someone-with-herpes/