Bidya Gautam
Human history is not only the history of victory and empowerment. Human history also time and often disgraced with unseen colors of defeats and failures in the form of differing pandemic outbreaks from very beginning of the civilization to still now. These pandemic outbreaks have always challenged so called unlimited intellectual mental domain of human mind and over expanding material emphasis of human world. Persisting threats caused all over the world by pandemic outbreak of Covid-19 with more than 5 million cases all over the world including over 328,000 deaths is not a new episode of human life serial. Such a terrifying episodes of pandemic outbreaks have already narrated their full stories of vulnerabilities, difficulties, human limitations with unclear plot creation and horrifying characterization of human civilization.
Many of those pandemics have created significant impacts on human society and capabilities killing large percentage of global population, infecting mass population and finally generating opportunities for human’s to ponder large questions about human life and values which opens higher possibilities of humans for introspection of their own being apart from the definition confined within the limitation of physical and material perception. In this context, I would like to active my pen in narrating the history of pandemic attacks in human civilization from very longtime ago to still now, which is based on the report published on www.businessinsider.com by Ryder Kimbell described as below :
- Plague of Justinian ( 541-750) : This pandemic is based on traditional narration and is said to have definitely happened with killing of about 30-50 million of people. But researchers are still investing for finding out the evidences.
- Black death (1347-1351 A.D ) : This pandemic spread throughout Europe killing approximately 25 million of people. European population level took over 200 years to return back to their previous level before 1347.
- Small Pox ( 15 th cen to 17th cen ) : Europeans introduced a number of new diseases when they first entered in the land of Americans in 1492. One of such new diseases bought is Small Pox which resulted in killing of around 30% of those infected, and claimed the lives of 20 million people which was near to 90% of the population.
- Cholera ( 1817-1823 ) : Cholera pandemic appearing time and often in human history have killed millions of people.
- Spanish Flu or H1N1 (1918-1919 ) : This pandemic is said to have infected around 500 million of people almost one third of world’s population, and almost killed 50 million of people all over the world.
- Hongkong Flu or H3N2 ( 1968-1970 ) : This influenza is third outbreak or continuation of influenza named Spanish and Asian which appeared in 20th 5,00,000 people are said to have infected within 2 weeks of its first conformed case and put global fatalities around 1 million.
- HIV\AIDS ( 1981-present ) : The first known case of HIV\AIDS were reported in 1981 but the disease continues to infect and kill people globally still now . 39.9 million People are living with HIV and 770,000 people have encountered death globally still the end of 2018 according to WHO.
- SARS (200-2003 ) : An outbreak which got its origin from Guangdong province of China turned into global pandemic spreading over 26 of total countries, infecting just over 8,000 people and killing 774 of them .
- Swin Flu or H1N1 ( 2009-2010 ) : This emerged in 2009 infecting aqpproximately 60.8 million people in the U.S causing fatalities ranging from 151,700 to 575,400 globally.
- Ebola (2014-2016 ) : It had limited its range of fatality and damage compared to other pandemic with 28,600 being infected and 11, 325 being killed.
- Coronavirus or Covid-19 : All are well know about the destructions and deaths caused by this pandemic still now .
These facts and figures are only enough to figure out the fatalities caused due to various pandemics still now in human history but yet it fails to encompass the damages caused by pandemic economically, socially and psychologically. When we talk about any kind of damage caused in human history, the economic and social aspects are said to be resumed with the flow of time but the psychological trauma is transformed from generation to generation in the form of grief, pain and unforgettable memories carrying within themselves. Same might go even with the pandemic prevailing at recent time. There is no any doubt about the preventive measures adopted by government to contain the spread of Corona Pandemic including extension of lockdown, adoption of isolation and quarantine procedures, rapid testing method, contact tracing, enforcement of social distancing. All of them are highly commendable. But yet, there is need of adopting some effective majors for addressing psychological stigma of people caused by pandemic outbreak. However the psychological stigma is all associated with anxieties and fears which is the very outcome of incapability’s even to fulfill basic requirements of daily life, loss of employment, insecurities of investment, curtails of economic activities and ongoing downfall of economic efficiency globally, deficiency of required resources and many more. This psychological stigma has embraced all the classes of our nation which may gradually lead to psychological imbalance of mass population. So it’s the time of government to act intellectually and ensure the security of life of all classes of nation through upcoming fiscal programs and budgetary instruments. The psychological stigma of all Nepali people could be cured with practical implementation of the various relief packages adopting the principle of justice, identifying the mostly needed ones and most vulnerable ones. When we talk about psychological stigma, the major contributing aspect for immediate healing is counseling. But recent stigma is the outcome of fear associated with poverty and a bad sense of insecurities even towards life not due to pandemic but due to lack of sufficient food more. So the counseling factor would be ensuring people for not losing their lives due to scarcity and starvation for one group of nation and ensuring compensation packages for another group of nation. So major components and institutions of government should play as best counselor or psychologists.
Albeit we all are not remained untouched by the psychological stigma bought by the pandemic, the pandemic has also marked with a great contribution in human’s life to realize the inner reality of human capabilities and unexplainable capacity of creator or nature. Humans have always showcased their over confidence to establish themselves as superpower in existence with excessive material development and zero figure management of inner values and beauty. All the pandemics in the history have alerted humans of their unrealized reality that even development and enhancement should remain within the territory defined and prescribed by nature. Whenever human’s have tried to cross the limitations, nature has played its role of check and balance reminding humans to respect the basic norms and values of creator despite assuming themselves superior than nature who is the ultimate creator and destination designer of humanity.
(officer-Nepal Tourism Board)