Pandemic audiobook cover - Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond

Pandemic

Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond

Sonia Shah

★ 4.4 / 5(105 ratings)
Start ListeningDownload App
Categories:
ScienceHealth & Nutrition

If You're Curious About These Questions...

You should listen to this audiobook

Listen to Pandemic — Free Audiobook

Loading player...

Key Takeaways from Pandemic

Learning Tools

Reinforce what you learned from Pandemic

Mind Map

Pandemic
Origins of Outbreaks+
Mechanisms of Spread+
Waste & Sanitation+
Institutional Failures+
Misplaced Public Fear+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 7
How did the cholera bacteria originally adapt to make humans their new host in the Sundarbans?
  • A. Through genetic mutation caused by early chemical pesticides used in rice cultivation.
  • B. Through continuous human exposure to cholera-bearing copepods after forests were cleared for agriculture.
  • C. Through consumption of infected bat meat sold in early agricultural trading posts.
  • D. Through the deliberate introduction of the bacteria by Mughal emperors to protect their borders.
Question 2 of 7
According to the text, why did early cholera evolve to produce a toxin that causes severe diarrhea?
  • A. It was an evolutionary mechanism to flush the bacteria out of a sick person and into the proximity of healthy people.
  • B. It allowed the bacteria to survive longer in the high-salinity waters of modern ocean canals.
  • C. It was a defensive response to the human immune system's attempt to destroy the pathogen.
  • D. It helped the bacteria bond together to form a sticky film in the human gut.
Question 3 of 7
Even with advancements in human sanitation, how do waste management issues continue to cause dangerous outbreaks today?
  • A. Overloaded urban sewage systems frequently back up into modern residential water supplies.
  • B. The lack of sanitation in international airports allows pathogens to cross borders easily.
  • C. Massive manure pools on gigantic industrial farms breed pathogens that can contaminate supermarket produce.
  • D. Rising tides in coastal cities regularly carry human waste from slums into drinking wells.
Question 4 of 7
What is one reason why pathogens can afford to be more aggressive and deadly in densely populated cities?
  • A. They are exposed to a wider variety of genetic mutations from different animal species.
  • B. They can spread to new hosts rapidly, so they don't need to keep their current host alive for long.
  • C. The increased pollution in cities weakens the human immune system, allowing pathogens to mutate.
  • D. The lack of clean drinking water in urban centers makes medical treatments less effective.
Question 5 of 7
How did politician Aaron Burr inadvertently contribute to the massive New York City cholera outbreaks of 1832 and 1849?
  • A. He passed a law that deregulated the meatpacking industry, leading to contaminated food.
  • B. He blocked the World Health Organization from investigating early cases of the disease.
  • C. He diverted funds intended for a new clean waterworks project to start his own bank instead.
  • D. He forced the relocation of thousands of immigrants into overcrowded, unsanitary slum housing.
Question 6 of 7
Why did the 19th-century medical establishment reject William Brooke O’Shaughnessy’s effective intravenous fluid treatment for cholera?
  • A. The procedure was too expensive and resources were strictly reserved for the wealthy elite.
  • B. The treatment contradicted the prevailing Hippocratic belief that diseases were spread by foul-smelling 'miasmas.'
  • C. Physicians believed that cholera was a natural population control and intervening would be unethical.
  • D. The reductionist paradigm led doctors to believe that only vaccines could cure infectious diseases.
Question 7 of 7
What point does the author make by comparing the public's reaction to Ebola with its reaction to Lyme disease?
  • A. People tend to irrationally fear exotic diseases while remaining unconcerned about dangerous, widespread domestic pathogens.
  • B. Medical professionals are better equipped to handle new, foreign pathogens than older, domestic ones.
  • C. The media exaggerates the symptoms of domestic diseases to distract from international health crises.
  • D. Government quarantines are highly effective for domestic diseases but fail when applied to foreign outbreaks.

Pandemic — Full Chapter Overview

Pandemic Summary & Overview

Pandemic (2016) explores the fascinating world of pathogens and diseases and how they can spread from a bat in China to five other continents in a single day. How do these diseases evolve, and how does modern society help contribute to their success? And most importantly: what can we do to stop the next pandemic?

Who Should Listen to Pandemic?

  • People concerned about the next pandemic
  • Readers who want to know how pathogens develop
  • Medical students interested in preventing diseases

About the Author: Sonia Shah

Sonia Shah is an author and journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American and The Wall Street Journal. Her TED Talk, “Three Reasons We Still Haven’t Gotten Rid of Malaria,” was watched by over a million people around the world. Her other books include Crude: The Story of Oil and The Body Hunters.

🎧
Listen in the AppOffline playback & background play
Get App