Do Natural Disasters Breed Health Epidemics?

Few post-disaster myths have a stronger hold on our imaginations than the specter of a follow-on epidemic. Some imagine a killer virus will spread through the sudden glut of dead bodies. Others merely go by the notion that when it rains--or shakes, or erupts, or burns--it pours. But we can all take a deep, healthy breath: It’s not true. There don’t tend to be spontaneous epidemics in the wake of natural disasters. As a World Health Organization team explained in a 2007 study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases: “The risk for outbreaks after natural disasters is low.” [POPSCI]

The logic, reinforced by study after study, is simple: There is no relationship between terrestrial disasters and the breeding of viruses and bacteria. Forget corpses. Those lost in a disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane are killed by injury, not disease—and given the victims’ inherent lack of circulation, so to speak, the colds a few might have had beforehand are even less likely to be spread than before. Yes, floods can give disease-carrying mosquitoes more room to breed. Tetanus can ride puncture wounds into the bodies of unimmunized victims. It is even possible that some of the displaced, if forced into close quarters, can spread an airborne ailment among themselves. But in order for such maladies to be a threat after a disaster strikes, they had to have been present before. That means the area in question was probably dealing with rampant malaria, tetanus, or tuberculosis already, and thus its people are probably somewhat prepared for, and even somewhat immune to, any potential uptick.

read more: http://www.armageddononline.org/natural-disasters-health-epidemics.html

cover your mouth in the event of disaster. don't drink the water, don't breathe the air. especially don't lick the slime off corpses.