Abstract
Disasters such as the magnitude-9 Great East Japan Earthquake occur periodically. We considered this experience while developing measures against a predicted earthquake in the Nankai Trough. This report includes a summary of 10 disastrous infectious diseases for which a countermeasures seminar was held. Thirty-five speakers from twenty-one organizations performed the lectures. Besides infectious diseases, conference topics also included disaster prevention and mitigation methods. In addition, the development of point-of-care tests, biomarkers for diagnosis, and severity assessments for infectious diseases were introduced, along with epidemics of infectious diseases affected by climate. Of the 28 pathogens that became a hot topic, 17 are viruses, and 14 out of these 17 (82%) are RNA viruses. Of the 10 seminars, the last 2 targeted only COVID-19. It was emphasized that COVID-19 is not just a disaster-related infection but a disaster itself. The first seminar on COVID-19 provided immunological and epidemiological knowledge and commentary on clinical practices. During the second COVID-19 seminar, vaccine development, virological characteristics, treatment of respiratory failure, biomarkers, and human genetic susceptibility for infectious diseases were discussed. Conducting continuous seminars is important for general infectious controls.
Highlights
We proposed that acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) co-infected with tuberculosis (TB) (AIDS/TB) constitutes a natural disaster because the deaths caused by AIDS/TB account for 47% of all deaths in South Africa [13]
The first seminar was held at Shizuoka General Hospital (SGH), followed by a second seminar hosted by the Division of Disaster-related Infectious Diseases (DRI)
We summarized 10 consecutive seminars on disaster-related infectious diseases
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. In 2019, 396 natural disasters were recorded in the Emergency Events Database (EMDAT), with 11,755 deaths, 95 million people affected, and USD 103 billion in economic losses worldwide. This burden was not shared since Asia suffered the highest impact, accounting for 40% of disaster events, 45% of deaths and 74% of the total affected [1]. A lack of safe water access and inadequate sanitation facilities allow the transmission of water-borne and food-borne pathogens Diarrheal diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, and shigellosis cause epidemics with high mortality rates. We discussed infectious diseases associated with disasters, such as leptospirosis [5], dengue virus infection [6], and tuberculosis [7,8]. We introduce 10 seminars on measures against disaster-related infectious diseases and propose the role seminars play in combating infectious diseases associated with disasters
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