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,
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