What World War II typhus outbreaks tell us about stopping coronaviruses

More than 70 years ago, the Nazi-occupied Polish imprisoned community united and contained the deadly epidemic of typhus fever. Most of them did not have the help of vaccines or effective drugs. Instead, they were likely dependent on tools such as education, improved hygiene, and even social distance, according to a new study published today. The authors note that some of the lessons learned from the epidemic may apply very well to the current pandemic.

Researcher Lewis Stone, a mathematician at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, has been studying past and recent epidemics for over 30 years and relies on mathematical models to plot the spread of epidemics in the community. doing. Three years ago, he encountered a report of typhus occurring in an occupied Polish Warsaw ghetto. 450,000 people living in the space 1.3 square miles, Or more than an average of 7 people per room. But to his knowledge, little else has done to understand what this outbreak really looks like.

“I started checking the historical description and was surprised that this was overlooked. I had a small amount of data and when I plotted it I found this to be very important,” Stone said in Gizmodo. I told him.

Discovery of his team, Release There were many surprises at Science Advance.

Epidemic typhoid is a bacterium disease Notorious for annoying humanity in difficult times. It is transmitted by body lice feeding the blood of infected people. When lice reach another host through direct contact or clothing, contaminated feces or even carcasses are scratched by skin openings and infect new people. Both physical lice and typhus spread most easily in wars, famines, or in situations where people are crowded in small spaces with little regard for their health (though rare today, Several forms of typhus Still occasionally causing outbreaks, for example in prisons). Without treatment, it is deadly on a daily basis, 40% of victims..

Typhus was destroying Warsaw ghetto residents in late October 1941, Stone discovered. However, it then seemed to be mysteriously reduced by the end of the year, just before the winter when typhus outbreaks had historically worsened. Initially, Stone was worried that his death record for that period was incomplete, but he eventually found confirmation of the decline from historians’ daily ghetto accounts. No similar decrease in typhus fever was seen that winter in neighboring towns. It shows something else is happening in Warsaw.

A somewhat effective vaccine for typhus was invented shortly before the beginning of World War II, and even smuggling It is believed that most people have access to it in the Warsaw Ghetto. And it will take decades before an effective antibiotic for typhoid becomes widely available. Therefore, as evidenced by historical records and Stone studies, community members and their physicians likely relied on old-fashioned public health measures to stop the epidemic.

These measures include better hygiene and highProcedures by residents, Reinforced by According to education lectures, which may have been attended by hundreds of people Stone.. There was also a report of a young underground organization Medical students were trained on how best to deal with infectious diseases such as typhus. It might not have been considered so novel at the time, but there were probably social gaps.

“It was kind of common sense. “I don’t want to be the next person to be attacked by lice, so stay away from the typhoid person,” Stone said.

These measuresthat is Just mitigated the devastation caused by typhus That year, And the Nazis have actively impeded efforts to provide more food and other resources to people, aggravating deadlines for outbreaks. Stone’s model reported that about 100,000 people had typhus during that time, many not. But they have prevented much worse outbreaks that could possibly be 2-3 times bigger, Stone said. Sadly, in 1942, many ghetto residents began to be sent to Nazi death camps, eventually killing millions.

Stone’s research began before the covid-19 pandemic, and the two diseases differ in very important ways (among other things, covid-19 is much less deadly than typhus and spreads through breathing, not lice). .. However, he thinks his team’s findings are particularly timely.

“One important point is that public health measures can be effective during the epidemic. In Warsaw most people are starving and maybe what is happening around them, or I didn’t know that what they were doing was really useful,” Stone said.

Stone also noted the role played by stigmatization of minority communities in studying their accumulation in the Warsaw outbreak. The Nazis cited typhus as a reason to isolate Jewish inhabitants in the ghetto, occasionally pretending to prevent outbreaks and shooting at security guards as they attempted to escape. Covid-19 also affects disproportionately minority groups in the United States more disproportionately than others, with Trump’s administration Accused on a daily basis Foreigners and their dislike for spreading the coronavirus.

Like typhus, covid-19 has some tricks to take advantage of the disparities in the surrounding world. This is not the end of the story. The details may have been different during World War II, but the same principles apply today. Diseases spread by people can be stopped by people even without miracle cures and vaccines.