Investment in Scientific Research
Pandemics have spurred scientific investigation into the causes of
water-borne, air-borne, and vector-borne diseases. This has led to the
development of vaccines to prevent them, particularly after the advent
of ‘germ theory,’ pioneered by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. Edward
Jenner, the founder of vaccinology, developed the smallpox vaccine in
1796. Subsequent vaccines include rabies (1885), plague (1897),
diphtheria (1923), pertussis (1926), tuberculosis (1927), tetanus
(1927), yellow fever (1935), polio (1955 and 1962), measles (1964),
mumps (1967), rubella (1970), and hepatitis B (1981). Covid-19 has also
led to the development of multiple vaccines. After a successful
vaccination drive against smallpox, immunization programs by governments
have vaccinated 80 percent of the world’s children against 6 major
diseases: tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, and
polio. Public health institutions, especially municipalities, played a
key role in circumventing vaccine resistance and organizing mass
vaccination drives.
Pandemics also led to advancement in vital statistics, including
measures to track the infectiousness of a disease, e.g.,
R0 or ‘R-naught’ that estimates the number of
susceptible people each affected person is likely to infect on average.
Further, they facilitated new ways of community management of contagious
diseases: mandatory face masks, social distancing, lockdown, contact
tracing, testing, isolation, quarantine, and, more recently, work from
home, online schooling, remote shopping, and contactless service
delivery. The practice of quarantine originated in the fourteenth
century to protect coastal cities from plague. Port authorities in
Venice required ships arriving from infected ports to wait at the anchor
for 40 days before landing. A social movement was catalyzed by
scientific knowledge of the sources of contagion and socioeconomic
determinants of health. This led to ‘the great sanitary awakening.’