Author: Silviu

As more and more people believe zombies are real, they try to find a real zombie contagion with any occasion. Thus, once the ebola appeared, it was normal to relate it to the possibility of being responsible for the emergence of zombies.

Here is an interesting article about some presumably zombie due to ebola.

Also, as the Haitian culture seems to be one of those who led to the creation of the modern version of zombie, in this article you can read a few stories about zombies in Haiti.

In the end, I add some reasons why a real zombie apocalypse could actually happen.

AIDS in China and not only

From a previous post, you can find here a documentary about the lives of children with HIV in Anhui province, which can make us better understand the effects of blood donation campaigns in China.

Interesting aspects about these campaigns can be found in this reportage, which presents, in an ironic manner, the way authorities responded to the AIDS contagion, their decision to hide the truth from the villagers, and the lack of a sexual education in numerous areas in China.

Also, you can see some recent statistics about AIDS in China, to have a better understanding of the effects blood donation campaigns had on a long term and the way goverment tries to solve this problem or to understand how the lack of education still favors the spread of the disease.

Finally, I add a short documentray about the problems teens with AIDS face nowadays, the way society and even their own family behave in this situation.

Silviu

 

 

Rats and Plague

The action of the novel takes place in the city of Oran, beginning with the death of some rats, death which, even if initially didn’t seem to be something unusual, begins to create panic. The number of rats increases exponentially, especially towards the periphery of the city and, after so many dead animals, comes a dead man, event that alarms the doctor of the town. It seems obvious that rats are responsible for the spread of the disease and this was what people strongly believed over time.

Yet, some recent studies in London reached the conclusion that, after all, the plague was not spread by rats. As the archeologist Barney Sloane said, “the plague spread too fast for the traditional explanation of transmission by rats and fleas. It has to be person to person – there just isn’t time for the rats to be spreading it.” A recent study on this topic can be found in this article from The Guardian. Also, the fact that plague killed people in Northern Europe refutes the theory that the disease was spread by fleas. These new understanding of the disease lead the scientist to the conclusion that Plague was caused by “a viral hemorrhagic fever pandemic similar to Ebola “ and a comparison between these two diseases can be found here.