A message for everyone concerned about the fate of COVID-19

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Noof Khaled Bin Alsheikh Abo Baker, from Yemen, a 4th year medical student at Hadhramaut University College of Medicine. The writer is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

Dear everyone who concerns about COVID19,

I hope this article finds you curious to know if we are going to get rid of it once and for all!

Well, running from the fact that everything in life is temporary, and we humans ourselves would end once and eventually this life would lastly turn over, so a controllable unseen microorganism would do!

“There’s nothing — there’s nothing — including the virus variants, that suggests we couldn’t be out of the acute phase already, because this is controllable.”

_     Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s leading coronavirus expert. Van Kerkhove’s thinking, though, is influenced by her adamant view that the world could stop the pandemic if countries would only take the steps countries like New Zealand, Vietnam, and others have done, and bring transmission under control.

The pandemic COVID19 is neither the first nor the last pandemic human beings have faced, and as human civilizations flourished, so did infectious disease. Since history taking of a case reveals a lot to a final diagnosis, let’s take a history of some of the worst pandemics to assume a positive answer!

1. Plague of Justinian—No One Left to Die

Three of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history were caused by a single bacterium, Yersinia pestis, a fatal infection otherwise known as the plague. “As to how the plague ended, the best guess is that the majority of people in a pandemic somehow survive, and those who survive have immunity.” says Thomas Mockaitis, a history professor at DePaul University.

2. Black Death of 1347 which was the origin of the word “quarantine” and the start of its practice in the Western world; and “that definitely had an effect” as Mockaitis said.

3. The Great Plague of London—Sealing Up the Sick!

This is as cruel as it was to shut up the sick in their homes and bury the dead in mass graves, it may have been the only way to bring the last great plague outbreak to an end.

4. Cholera—A Victory for Public Health Research

Although it has largely been eradicated in developed countries, Cholera is still a persistent killer in third-world countries lacking adequate sewage treatment and access to clean drinking water. 

Through all of the pandemics, the means of eradication went differently, however; the fate is obviously one. Quarantine, physical distancing, travel restrictions, gatherings restrictions, hand-hygiene and mask-wearing are all of great impact toward eradication!

However, since Medical Education and researches are in successive follow up among the virus and its vaccination, since medical innovations are in progress toward eradication, since leading organizations are actively preserving hard works of well-thought-out medical and public initiatives toward awareness globally, regionally, nationally and locally, this pandemic would end once and for all!

There is always a hope, and when hope exists, there will be an era to tell “once upon a time; there was COVID19 that doesn’t exist anymore.”

References

https://www.statnews.com/2021/05/19/how-the-covid-pandemic-ends-scientists-look-to-the-past-to-see-the-future/  (Accessed in 25/11/2021).

https://www.history.com/news/pandemics-end-plague-cholera-black-death-smallpox (Accessed in 25/11/2021).

About the author

Noof Khaled Bin Alsheikh Abo Baker, from Yemen, 4th year medical student at Hadhramaut University College of Medicine.

• National Officer on Medical Education NAMS-Yemen within IFMSA
• Ambassador of Walter E. Dandy Neurosurgical Students’ Club, Yemen
• Co-author of a Systematic- Review and Meta-Analysis research about public intentions toward COVID-19 vaccination in U.S.
• Co-author of Social Media during COVID-19 Pandemic: It’s use and effects among community members in Arab countries to be published soon
• Co-author of Distance-learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to be published soon
• Collaborator in a regional study that assesses the prevalence of self-medication during COVID19 period
• Ambitious medical education and research enthusiastic, motivation advocate and a beginner pianist