Pandemia

In the past fifty years, more than three hundred infectious diseases have emerged or resurfaced in places where they had never been seen. Long before the arrival of COVID-19, almost all epidemiologists agreed that one of them would cause a deadly pandemic for generations to come: Ebola, bird flu, or something entirely new. While it was impossible to predict the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and we also cannot know what pathogen the next global outbreak will cause, by unraveling past pandemic stories we can begin to better understand our future and prepare for what it has in store for us. Pandemic is a fundamental work of epidemiological history that explores the origins of epidemics, drawing parallels between cholera -one of the most lethal and disturbing pandemic pathogens in history- and other new diseases that lie in wait for us. Tracing each stage of the dramatic journey of cholera, from its appearance in the interior of South Asia as a harmless microbe to its rapid spread around the world in the 19th century and its latest appearance in Haiti, it informs us of other pathogens that are now following its pathways. footsteps, such as the MRSA bacteria, which plague their own family, or the never-before-seen deadly viruses emerging from China's damp markets, New Delhi's operating rooms, and suburban backyards on the east coast of the United States.