Out Break : Epidemics in a Connected World

Out Break : Epidemics in a Connected World (An exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution)

The best selling book “The World is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century." by Thomas Friedman, New York Times, columnist, uses a metaphor -World is Flat- to describe the 21st century’s connected world (inspired by Nandan Nilekani), which offers a level playing field for commerce to the global community, destined to economically benefit countries like India. But then this very advantageous level playing field -of a connected world- comes with challenges of infectious disease outbreaks.

This year marks the centenary of the 1918 pandemic -the Spanish Flu Outbreak-which rampaged the world and killed 50 to 100 million people an estimated 5 percent of the world’s population. India too paid a heavy price during this outbreak resulting in an estimated 17 million deaths, in two waves of this deadly flu that swept India in May and October of that year. A hundred years later, scientists know much more about how to prevent and treat such diseases. But the threat of a global outbreak is now far greater than ever. Understanding what happened during this major health crisis is therefore important, particularly in the current connected world and an era of humanity’s growing population and its ever continuing drift to crowded cities across the globe and the resulting cohabitation of limited space with animal kingdom, which aid in spreading of diseases. All it takes now is one plane ride for a few localized cases of a disease to become an epidemic.

It is with this point in mind that the Nehru Science Centre, (NCSM), Ministry of Culture, Government of India, will be opening the “Outbreak” exhibition, which has been developed by the National Museum of Natural History, a Smithsonian Institution, and brought to our centre with support from the Harvard Global Health Institute.

TB, Malaria, Dengue, Influenza, and such other diseases like AIDS, Ebola, Cholera, Plague, Nipah, Zika etc. terrorise our country and kill thousands every year. If this is not scary the modern lifestyles in a connected world and ever increasing migration from villages and smaller towns to larger metropolitans and to global cities, with ever shrinking space, and inadequate hygiene is sure shot recipe for disaster and the best way to arrest this is creating awareness on infectious diseases and outbreaks. We therefore earnestly hope that this exhibition, which under different sections and simple narratives will help in sowing a seed of public awareness with a hope that it will result in changing behaviour on an individual and community level to bring about the much needed difference. This awareness, we hoped, will go a long way in lowering the pandemic risk and also in the much needed education to the public, who visit our centre in large numbers.

November 11,