Lab 13 Infectious Disease

ANTH 161 Name ___________________________ Lab 13 Lab section _______________________ Infectious Diseases About the Lab This lab will cover key elements of the science and history of infectious diseases in the age of Homo sapiens . The content has been modified from Dr. Sharon DeWitte’s course, ANTH204 Plagues: Past and Present. Exercise 1: The Fundamentals of Infectious Disease Watch the following video and fill in the definitions for the vocabulary listed below and answer the questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9axOFtPqS0c As mentioned in the video, there are multiple ways for people to be infected with a disease. Some modes of transmission that were not discussed include airborne, fecal-oral, sexual, blood, mother-to-child, and direct contact . Different diseases spread via different modes of transmission, oftentimes spread by multiple modes. For example, treponemal diseases (such as syphilis) can be passed from mother to child and cause hereditary syphilis , while also being contagious via direct contact and bodily fluids. Vocabulary 1. Incubation period – the time it takes for you to notice symptoms after you've been infected with something. 2. Infectious period – the time span between the first signs of an infectious disease and the final host reaction 3. Carriers – can pass on to its progeny a genetic variant (allele) associated with an autosomal recessive or sex-linked disease (or trait), and who does not show signs of such disease (or features of that trait). 4. Case Fatality – The proportion of people diagnosed with an illness who die from it is known as the case fatality ratio, and it is used to assess the severity of cases found. 5. Basic Reproductive Rate – In a population of susceptible, the estimated number of secondary infections occurring from a single individual during his or her infectious period. 6. Secondary Attack Rate – the percentage of nonindex household members that received a positive test result within 7 days of the index case's sample date, divided by the total number of nonindex household members. 7. Zoonotic diseases – is an infectious disease that can be passed from one species to another, such as from animals to humans. 8. Emerging Infectious Disease – Infectious diseases that have recently developed in a community or that had previously existed but are rapidly growing in incidence or geographic range are known as emerging infectious diseases. 1

ANTH 161 Name ___________________________ Lab 13 Lab section _______________________ 9. Vector-Borne Diseases – Disease caused by an infection spread by blood-feeding anthropoids such as mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas to humans and other animals. Questions : 1. What are four types of infectious agents? agents cause a wide variety of diseases affecting various parts of the body. The five main types of infectious agents are bacteria, protozoa, viruses, parasitic worms, and fungi . 2. What percentage of human diseases are zoonotic? Give one example of a zoonotic disease Most of the infectious diseases affecting humans are of animal origin. The “Asia Pacific strategy for emerging diseases: 2010” report estimated that around 60% of the emerging human infections are zoonotic in nature and among these pathogens more than 70% originated from wildlife species 3. Give an example of an Emerging Infectious Disease HIV infections, SARS, Lyme disease, E. coli O157:H7 (E. coli), hantavirus, dengue fever, West Nile virus, and the Zika virus are all examples of emerging illnesses. Diseases that resurface after a long period of decrease are known as reemerging diseases. Exercise 2: Diseases over time Humans have always dealt with pathogens. Both people and various pathogens constantly evolve in response to each other. However, the types of disease that humans encounter have changed over the course of our history, especially after the rise of agriculture and urbanization. Hunter-gatherers were not affected by many of the diseases we think of as common in the US, as their nomadic way of life and small population groups prevented widespread transmission of diseases in the way our densely populated cities do. Instead, they were impacted most often by zoonotic and vector-based diseases and those that persist in the environment (e.g. in soil and water). Common diseases include tetanus, typhus, sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis), lice, pinworms, and typhoid fever. With the transition to agriculture in the Neolithic, population demographics began to change. As food was now consistently available and grown in a small area, people settled down and populations grew. Animal domestication and increased population density increased susceptibility to diseases as people consumed contaminated water and were in close contact with both animals (zoonotic disease) and lots of other people. One example of this is the site of Dickson Mounds, located along the Illinois River in central Illinois. This site was occupied for centuries and the strata show changes in diet from the hunting and gathering to intensive maize agriculture around 1200-1300 CE. During the transition to agriculture, evidence of infectious disease doubled to almost 70% of the population after the shift to agriculture as the primary means of subsistence. This increase in disease prevalence is 2

ANTH 161 Name ___________________________ Lab 13 Lab section _______________________ The Black Death, according to most evidence, was the predominant bubonic strain of plague, which was carried far and wide by flea-infested rats on vessels and fleas on the bodies and clothing of travelers. 3. What are the two ways mentioned in the video that the Black Death impacted humanity? Cambridge University: The Spanish Flu: A warning from history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x1aLAw_xkY 1. How many people died from the Spanish Flu? 50,000,000 2. Why is it considered a forgotten pandemic? (What event was happening simultaneously?) Future generations were not always aware of the pandemic because they were reluctant to talk or write about it. It became "America's forgotten pandemic," as historian Alfred W. Crosby called it in the title of his 1974 book. World war was happening simultaneously. 3. Which age group was most affected? Is this unusual? If so, why? The Spanish influenza primarily affected males and women between the ages of 15 and 44. 4. Where do scientists believe the disease actually started? (Hint: it isn’t Spain) Because Spain was neutral during the First World War and there was no press embargo on the death toll, the 1918 influenza pandemic is incorrectly referred to as "The Spanish Flu." The epidemic was most likely carried to Spain by migratory Spanish and Portuguese workers traveling by train to and from France. Indeed, the 1918 pandemic is commonly referred to as "The French Flu" in Spain. Why is it difficult to make influenza vaccines? Certain influenza viruses may not circulate until later in the influenza season in some years, making the preparation of a candidate vaccine virus in time for vaccine manufacture challenging. This can make choosing a vaccine virus difficult. 4