Epidemiologists: Pandemics And Prospects Of Learning From Previous Outbreaks

Illustration (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Australia's Griffith University Epidemiologist Dicky Budiman stated that the COVID-19 pandemic and health protocols (prokes) are a form of world learning from disease outbreaks that have occurred before.

“What we do now, will also have an effect in the future. Therefore, this becomes an important basis. One of the things we have to learn is history," said Dicky in the "Revive Your Immune System In Ramadhan" Webinar which was followed online in Jakarta, reported by Antara, Wednesday, April 6.

Dicky said that the outbreaks before the COVID-19 pandemic had provided very meaningful lessons to humans in dealing with future diseases.

For example, the importance of paying attention to indicators of mortality and immunity in handling an outbreak, he said.

Dicky said the lesson was learned when the world faced the Justinian plague that occurred in 541 AD in which around 50 million people died from an organism called Yersinia Pestis that causes bubonic plague.

While some people are protected because they have immunity that can help themselves avoid death even though knowledge about diseases at that time was still very minimal.

“It sends a message to us at this time not to rely on problems or allow infections to cause casualties. Because when we talk about COVID-19 today, it is not only a matter of death but there is something called Long Covid," he said.

Then in 1353 the world experienced the black plague (Black Death). When the epidemic occurred, society implemented a system where there had to be a separation between sick people and healthy people. Even sick people are not allowed to visit or leave the house.

This means that the black epidemic caused the birth of a quarantine system in the community to avoid the transmission of a virus. Although at that time at least 75 million people were declared dead.

In 1796 there was a smallpox epidemic that attacked the world. Smallpox at that time could be cured through vaccination, so the world realized that vaccine development was an important thing that could help solve an epidemic.

Dicky also said the importance of keeping the environment clean, such as water and sanitation, was an improvement in people's behavior which was realized through the transmission of cholera around 1817.

Maintaining cleanliness is one of the interventions to protect the public from contracting a deadly virus. Dicky asked that from the entire history of the outbreak, the public could understand the importance of discipline in health protocols and vaccinations.

"Currently there are 3T (testing, tracing and treatment) there are 5M, those are the keys that are now being applied and we get from history," said Dicky.