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The Maturation of the International Health Crisis Response: the Polish Typhus Epidemic of 1916-1923 Compared to the African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic of 2013-2016: Part I, The Polish Epidemic
Version 1
: Received: 3 September 2024 / Approved: 4 September 2024 / Online: 9 September 2024 (04:23:53 CEST)
How to cite:
Anstead, G. M. The Maturation of the International Health Crisis Response: the Polish Typhus Epidemic of 1916-1923 Compared to the African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic of 2013-2016: Part I, The Polish Epidemic. Preprints2024, 2024090405. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.0405.v1
Anstead, G. M. The Maturation of the International Health Crisis Response: the Polish Typhus Epidemic of 1916-1923 Compared to the African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic of 2013-2016: Part I, The Polish Epidemic. Preprints 2024, 2024090405. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.0405.v1
Anstead, G. M. The Maturation of the International Health Crisis Response: the Polish Typhus Epidemic of 1916-1923 Compared to the African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic of 2013-2016: Part I, The Polish Epidemic. Preprints2024, 2024090405. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.0405.v1
APA Style
Anstead, G. M. (2024). The Maturation of the International Health Crisis Response: the Polish Typhus Epidemic of 1916-1923 Compared to the African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic of 2013-2016: Part I, The Polish Epidemic. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.0405.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Anstead, G. M. 2024 "The Maturation of the International Health Crisis Response: the Polish Typhus Epidemic of 1916-1923 Compared to the African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic of 2013-2016: Part I, The Polish Epidemic" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.0405.v1
Abstract
Poland suffered an epidemic of louse-borne typhus from 1916-1923, with 400,000 cases and more than 130,000 deaths. The causative factors were depressed economic conditions and a refugee crisis that engulfed Poland after World War I. The recognition of the epidemic in 1919 stimulated the creation of the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS). However, the LCRS had limited resources and the Poles requested help from other governments and the League of Nations (LoN). The United States sent the American-Polish Relief Expedition to conduct delousing. However, the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 disrupted typhus control and exacerbated the refugee situation. The LoN belatedly organized an underfunded Epidemic Commission. The LCRS sent a research team that did ground-breaking work on the pathology of typhus. Into 1921, the epidemic continued, driven by refugees from typhus-stricken Russia. By 1924, typhus cases were finally approaching pre-World War I levels. Multiple factors lead to the amelioration of the epidemic. The repatriation of prisoners of war and displaced civilians had concluded by 1923. Also, there had been a steady influx of sanitary, food, economic, and medical aid from various organizations into Poland since 1919. Administratively, within Poland, the anti-typhus campaign was also conducted more effectively by the Extraordinary Epidemic Commissariat.
Keywords
epidemic typhus; relapsing fever; Poland; international health; Rickettsia prowazekii; human body louse; Ebola Virus Disease
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
