The Yellow Fever Epidemic.

In the last unit in the disease class called World, we learned about how diseases can cause an epidemic. For this Action Project, we had to map and graph the path of an epidemic caused by a disease that we picked. I picked Yellow Fever, the reasoning for picking that disease is because I wanted to learn more about it. I have heard about it before but didn't know a lot of information. What I enjoyed most about this Action Project was finding information about my disease. What I found most challenging is graphing information on Gapminder. Overall I enjoyed doing this project, and I also really liked this term.

Yellow Fever. wwnc.cdc.gov. 2008.

Yellow Fever originated in Africa and was likely brought to America on ships during slave trade. The number of Yellow Fever cases has increased during that time because of the rising population cause dense living and not the right sanitation. The climate was also changing causing a rise of mosquitoes.

Yellow fever is caused by the Yellow Fever virus YFV, also called Flavivirus. The virus is transmitted by female mosquitoes, who pick it up from monkeys or humans, then delivers it to a new human when they bite and suck blood. The disease cannot be spread from person to person. Yellow fever epidemic of 1793 started during the summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The disease was brought by refugees and mosquitoes on ships from Saint-Domingue. The disease rapidly spread to Prot City. About 5000 people died, ten percent of the population of 50,000.

Gapminder. Created by JV. 2015.

Above is a graph that shows a drought and epidemic deaths that occurred in the 1990's in Kenya. This epidemic that is shown may have been Yellow Fever. I picked Kenya because that was one part of Africa that was infected with Yellow fever. Two risk factors for this graph is drought, farms in that area lost crops because of low water continent. That will cause people not getting the right nutrition and weaking their immune system to fight off disease. That will cause an epidemic to spread because if you are weak and than get sick with an illness, you can fight it off. 

In 1853, the disease killed 7,849 residents of New Orleans. The press and the medical team did not alert citizens of the outbreak until the middle of July, after more than one thousand people had already died. The New Orleans business community feared that an epidemic would cause a quarantine to be placed on the city, and their trade would suffer. The steamboats carried passengers and the disease from New Orleans to other cities along the Mississippi River. Norfolk, Virginia 1855. A ship carrying passengers infected with the virus arrived in Hampton Roads in southeastern in June 1855. The disease spread quickly through the community, eventually killing over 3,000 people, mostly residents of Norfolk and Portsmouth.

The symptoms to Yellow Fever is affecting the kidney and liver causing high fever and jaundice. This disease is not curable, but is preventable with the Yellow Fever vaccine. The first vaccine was made in the 1930s and that controlled most of the outbreak. The vaccine coverage reach 60% to 80% of a population at risk.

The R0 for Yellow Fever is 4.1 so for every 1 person 4 people get infected. Vaccination is the only way to prevent the disease. If this disease would happen to break out again, I would say to quarantine people who may be infection because that would stop the spread of the disease. I would also recommend the vaccine because that brought down the infection rate.


Citations:

Gapminder. www.gapminder.org. N.P.N.D. Web 15 March, 2015. 

The importance of climate to global distribution of dengue and yellow fever.climate-services.org. Michael A Johnson. N.D. Web 15 March, 2015.

Yellow Fever.healthline.com. Colleen Story. 2012. Web. 15 March, 2015.

Yellow Fever Epidemic in New Orleans 1853.lafayettecemetery.org. N.P. N.D. 15 March, 2015.

History of Yellow Fever.historyofvaccines.org. N.P. N.D. 18 March, 2015.

The Color Purple.

The last unit in Forbidden books is called Diversity, we learned about why books have been forbidden for promoting diversity. To understand that better we had to pick a book for this class that has been banned. The book that I chose was The Color Purple, I picked this because when I was younger I saw the movie but didn't understand the meaning of it. I also wanted to find out why the book was censored in so many places. For this last action project we had to write a well crafted essay stating a thesis topic on the topic of our book. I picked to do an Literal, ethical, and symbolic level. I wanted to talk about God in my essay because that word was heavy used throughout the book, and so was religion. What was most challenging about this action project was writing it. Since I picked a hard topic it was hard developing my essay. What I am most proud of is how my essay came together and I really enjoyed reading the book.

The Color Purple: A new story for a Familiar Reader. library.duke.edu. 2008. 

Stages.

In the second unit of my Steam course called Mind, we learned about the nervous system, by focusing on one disorder that impacts multiple aspects of the mind: autism. We also learned about different mental illnesses. The purpose of this action project is to create a sensory experience for my classmates to experience for a moment, and see the world through the eyes of someone with a mental disorder. We also had to create a flier stating information about the disease I picked. For my action project I did some research on my Great-Grandmother who is 90 years old and has full blown Alzheimer’s. I picked Alzheimer’s because I like learning more about this mental disease and since I work at a Nursing Home and my Great Grandmother has it I feel comfortable talking about it.

In the DSM-V it says that Alzheimer's is one of the Etiological Sub types, which says that Alzheimer’s is dementia. Alzheimer's is a disease that affects the brain, it’s a disease that slowly kills the neurons in your brains and usually starts slowly and gets worse over time. Most common symptom is forgetting daily tasks. In Alzheimer's, there are four stages to Alzheimer’s, Stage 1 – No impairment. Stage 2 – Minimal Impairment/Normal Forgetfulness. Stage 3 – Early Confusional/Mild Cognitive Impairment. Stage 4 – Late Confusional/Mild Alzheimer's. An Alzheimer's patient’s mood can change for many different reasons. Sun-downing is a condition that affects people with Alzheimer’s elderly usually become confused or disoriented at the end of the day. This can last from 5-8 pm it may prevent people with dementia from sleeping well. It may also make them more likely to wander. Sun-downing is a main cause in Alzheimer's, it causes pain to the patient and also makes them very aggressive. For my project I asked questions to my Grandpa who’s mother has full blown Alzheimer’s.

Grandpa: Son of my great grandmother. “Its hard living with my mother because she constantly forgets how to do certain things. She forgets where the bathroom is, where her room is and even forgets the family members that are taking care of her. She also gets very aggressive when we are just trying to help her, going to bed at night is the worse because she just wants to stay up and walk around the house but she can’t because she ends up getting in the wrong things. Its so hard seeing her going through this but I know we are doing our best to keep her healthy and most importantly keeping her around.”

My lesson plan experiment, my classmates will wear tinted sunglasses because old people can’t see well, latex gloves with tape around two fingers so your hands feel weak trying to pick up items, and headphones with random noise playing because some Alzheimer's patients hear loud noises. This experiment will make people experience what Alzheimer patients go through.

Thirty Year War.

 The second unit in Forbidden Books is called Dogma, we learned about two main world religions which are Christianity and Islam. We learned how religions can cause huge problems between people and how some people and books can be censored or ban because of certain beliefs the book stated or the person has. To understand a religion better we visited a Muslim Mosque, where we were able to ask questions and get a better understanding of Muslim beliefs. The topic that I picked was Germany during the 1930's, when Hitler was in charge and taking over Europe. I picked this topic because I love researching about history and learning more about it. One interesting detail that I learned was the night of burning books in Berlin, I have never heard about this event and it was nice learning something new I explain this event more in my side show. What I enjoyed most about this action project was doing all my research, and finding pictures for my slides because I like to look at pictures from the past. One thing that I found most challenging was doing the research because it took up so much time. Overall I really enjoyed doing the project I learned a lot!