Mankind has a long history of peace and war, pain and pleasure, good and bad. Even amid these antipodal points, the prevalence of a disease over a whole country or the world, otherwise known as pandemic, is not a common phenomenon.

Pandemics are rare for a host of reasons. No one can deny that societies develop differently; hence, circumstances that allow for widespread infections in one place may be lacking in others. Knowledge of or about hygiene also differs from one place to another.

Although practices and norms that allow for a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease exist in most societies; healthcare systems, life choices, rate of physical contacts among others play great roles in how and when pandemics will occur in most societies. In sum, circumstances that gave rise to an epidemic in one place may be non-existent in another.

Notwithstanding the above, the world has witnessed more than fifty instances of global pandemics. Compared to the number of deadly diseases that abound in different parts of the world, fifty instances of global pandemics are a relatively small number. Studying pandemics is important, especially because they are rare.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus at Wuhan, Hubei Province, China in December 2019, global attention has shifted to the limits of human achievements. Nothing made the precariousness of human existence more glaring like the total closure of schools and businesses, cities and towns, international agencies and governments. Many nations have even shut down, as efforts are ramped up at a frenetic pace, with governments rushing to contain the spread of Covid-19, as this new iteration of coronavirus is called.

The culprit of the current global pandemic, coronavirus, is an ‘enveloped viruses’ and a subfamily of Orthocoronavirinae, in the family of Coronaviridae. With genome size ranging from about 26 to 32 kilobases, coronaviruses are characterized by club-shaped spikes that project from their surface, which give it the semblance of the solar corona; hence, the name coronavirus.

As a group of related viruses, coronaviruses were first discovered in the 1930s. Being an acute respiratory infection, they cause from mild to lethal diseases in mammals and domesticated chickens and other birds. Between the 1930s and 1940s, studies on coronaviruses in chickens and birds, showed that they are responsible for upper respiratory tract diseases such as, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) and transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV). In camels, cows and pigs, coronaviruses cause diarrhea.

Earliest studies on coronaviruses were not limited to their impacts on birds, camels, cows and pigs. They extended to humans, where coronaviruses were found to be responsible for mild illnesses such as the common cold (rhinoviruses) and the more lethal ones like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and, as the current global experiences have shown, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Until the 1960s, coronaviruses infections were limited to birds and animals. Since the 1960s, however, cases of human coronavirus have increased, with researchers puzzled as to how the virus jumped from animals to humans. Coronaviruses in humans have led to different classifications – human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43 in 1960, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003, human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63) in 2004, Human coronavirus HKU (HKU1) in 2005, Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in 2019 which is the cause of Covid-19.

Since its debut in human populations, coronaviruses infected persons have manifested the following symptoms: COVID-19 symptoms include cough, fever, shortness of breath, muscle aches, sore throat, unexplained loss of taste or smell, diarrhea, and headache. We have also seen cases where infected persons experienced severe respiratory problems, kidney failure and death.

Whether in the form of antiviral drugs or vaccines, no known cure exists for human coronavirus infections. In addition to a lack of cure, researchers are also yet to come up with how coronaviruses jumped into humans.

Notwithstanding these, a lot is however known about how coronavirus spreads among humans. As studies have shown, when an infected person coughs or sneezes, droplets containing the virus are released into the air. Borne in the air, the virus-containing droplets generally travel within a few feet and fall to the ground or any surface. If an uninfected person is within a few feet of the infected person or when an uninfected person touches an infected surface, such an uninfected person contracts the virus. The newly infected person may not show any signs of infection within 14 days of exposure to the virus.

Epidemics of different magnitudes have occurred in different parts of the world. However, for about half of the 7.8 billion people in the world today, the on-going Covid-19 is their first experience of a global pandemic. Compared to the on-going pandemic, what were the situations like in previous experiences of global pandemics?

The remaining part of this essay will focus on a few cases of epidemics and global pandemics as well as their impacts on human community.

Hamin Mangha and Miaozigou Pandemic: Circa 3000 B.C.

One of the best-known cases of global pandemics occurred at about 3000 BCE in China. From archaeological remains in a prehistoric village in China, whole cities were destroyed by an unknown disease and bodies of the dead – from old and young, males and females, were loaded into houses and burned down. As the human skeletons from one of the archaeological sites showed, all the inhabitants of Hamin Mangha in northeastern China perished in not only one of the worst human catastrophes of the times, but also one of the fastest cases of human deaths of the prehistoric period.

Archaeological and anthropological studies showed that the pandemic occurred so quickly that no one was left behind to give proper burials to the dead. The pandemic not only killed the entire inhabitants of Hamin Mangha, but also those of Miaozigou, in northeastern China.

Plague of Athens, 430 to 435 BCE

As Thucydides, the Greek historian, noted in “The History of the Peloponnesian War”, inhabitants of Athens suffered violent death when “violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath” between 430 BCE and 435 BCE. Within these five years, Athens lost an estimated 100,000 people to a disease that is similar in symptoms to typhoid fever and Ebola.

As scholars have argued, overcrowding was one of the major causes of this pandemic. And Sparta’s victory over Athens in 404BCE cannot be divorced from the impact of this disease.

Antonine Plague, 165 BCE to 180 CE

As April Pudsey noted in “Disability in Antiquity”, the Roman Empire lost about 5 million people to smallpox between 165 and 180 CE. Following the war with Parthia, Roman soldiers returned home bearing not only spoils of war, but an unseen disease – smallpox, which invariably brought the Pax Romana to its abrupt end.

The Pax Romana (Roman Peace) described a period in Roman history when the great Empire was at the height of its power – between 27 BCE to 180 CE – spreading its influences and rule from one part of the Roman world to another.

One of the outcomes of this catastrophe is wider acceptance of Christianity as many explained the pandemic, the Roman civil wars and the invasion of Christendom by ‘barbarians’ as resulting from sin.

Plague of Cyprian, 250Ce to 271 CE

Writing in “De Mortalitate”, St. Cyprian Hippolytus, the Bishop of Carthage (a city in today’s Tunisia), wrote concerning the plague of 250 CE to 27 CE that it affected the “bowels, relaxed into a constant flux, discharge the bodily strength [and] a fire originated in the marrow ferments into wounds of the fauces (an area of the mouth).”  Given the devastation caused by the pandemic, the Bishop believed that the world had come to an end.

While the number of total deaths may not be known, the Bishop noted that at its height, it killed more than 5000 people in Rome per day. With bodies of victims covered in lime, the Bishop noted that the dead were so many that they were dumped in mass graves, covered with lime, as disinfectant, and covered up. Buttressing the Bishop’s claims, archaeologists have dug out mass graves of victims of the Cyprian Plague in Luxor. At these graves, archaeologists found human bones and skulls as well as three kilns where lime was made and a giant bonfire, where the remains of the plague were burnt.

The Bubonic Plague of Justinian, 541 CE to 542 CE

The bubonic plague ravaged the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Justinian who ruled the Empire between 527 CE and 565 CE. Emperor Justinian, the great Byzantine Emperor who built Istanbul’s iconic cathedral – the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), controlled from the Middle East to Western Europe. Personally, Emperor Justinian suffered a bout of bubonic sickness but recovered, watched helplessly as his citizens and subjects withered and died in thousands. A re-enactment of this event can be watched on Netflix today.

The plague, which often reoccurred, is estimated to have accounted for loss of between 30 and 50 million people — about half the world’s population at that time. It spread from Constantinople across to Asia, North Africa, Arabia, and Europe.

As the National Geographic noted, the bubonic plague, also called the Black Death, spread by rodents whose fleas carried the bacteria, also struck 800 years later, killing about 50 million Europeans between 1347 and 1351 alone.

The Black Death 1346 CE to 1353CE

The bubonic plague, caused by a strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis that is likely extinct today, was spread by fleas on infected rodents, killed about 10 percent of total world population under emperor Justinian. It also recurred across Asia and the Middle East, Europe and Africa between 1346 and 1353 CE. Everywhere, the bubonic plague – also known as the Black Death, left untold devastation in its wake. In its 14th Century reincarnation, the bubonic plague killed more than half of the population in Europe and more than half of total population in today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Whether in the Middle East and Asia or Europe and Africa, victims were either burned or buried in mass graves. With its astronomical death-rate, labour-shortages, higher wages, ending of serfdom, etc. are among its impact on Europe.

While the Antonine Plague of between 165 BCE and 180 CE brought about revival in Christianity, the bubonic plague of the 14th Century spelt doom for Christianity and the Church. For many people, it was difficult for the Church to explain why a loving God can afford to watch as mankind perished under the paroxysm of the Black Death. In order words, it sparked not a rejection of religious explanations to occurrences, but also an embrace of technological innovation, rational inquiry and the belief in science.

Between 1545 CE to modern times, the world has witnessed numerous cases of global pandemics. Notable examples include the Cocoliztli epidemic of a viral hemorrhagic fever, which led to the death of about 15 million native populations in Mexico and Central America between 1545 CE and 1548 CE; the 16th Century American Plague – composing of smallpox, syphilis, smallpox, etc. brought to the Americas by European explorers, which led to the death of 90% of the indigenous populations in the Western Hemisphere as well as the Great Plague of London (between 1665 CE and 1666 CE) where, under King Charles II, the bubonic plague forced mass migration from London and an estimated death of 100,000 people – about 15 percent of Londoners.

We also have the Russian plague of between 1770 and 1772, the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793, the flu pandemic of between 1889 and 1890, the American polio epidemic of 1916, the Spanish flu of between 1918 and 1920 CE, the Asian flu of between 1957 CE and 1958 CE, the HIV/AIDS pandemic that started in 1981, the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic of between 2009 and 2010, the Ebola epidemic that occurred in West Africa between 2014 and 2016 and the Zika Virus epidemic that began in 2015.

From the above, it can be argued that since the end of the Second World War, knowledge about disease pathogen, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and worms has increased; so also, is the surge in the occurrences of global pandemics. A whole lot of conspiracy theories have been offered for this development. Many argued that the surge in global pandemics cannot be dissociated from USA, Russia and, more recently, China’s competition for global dominance in trade, technologies, and warfare. Individuals like Bill and Melinda Gates have also been accused of spiking global pandemics for their business interests in vaccine developments. Some apocalyptic explanations, reminiscent of St. Cyprian Hippolytus, have also been averred. We have even seen the most ridiculous of these conspiracy theories linking, most especially Covid-19, to China-USA competition over the launch of 5G communication radio band.

Although disproving or confirming any of these theories is not within the purview of the essay, this author is however of the considered opinion that the spikes currently witnessed in how quickly one epidemic in one remote part of the world transforms into a global pandemic cannot be dissociated from global change in transportation. Today, an infected but asymptomatic person from one part of the world can jump on a plane, a railway, a bus, a passenger ship and travel thousands of miles to other parts of the world.

Like Christopher Columbus and his men in the 15th Century, modern humans have become disease vectors, carrying and transmitting infectious pathogens from one area and one living organism into other areas and living organisms. In order words, through modern transportation systems, we are now witnessing an increasing rate of transmission of intermediate parasites or microbes from animate and inanimate media such as seats on planes or trains, droplets from sneezing or coughing to dust particles.

The above list is by no means exhaustive.