Coronavirus: The Deathliest Communicable Plague.

By:Ashiq Raki
Visiting Lecturer Dept of International Relations KIU Gilgit

Human health and infectious diseases are coevals of humankind since the very birth of humanity itself. When, Karl Marx famously phrased, history repeats itself, he didn’t only mean that the particular history of conflict, discord and politics will repeat itself, what he meant was that all dimension of history repeats itself, including the history of communicable diseases as well. Epidemics are one of the ancient issues that have had never esteemed national boundaries, political realms and topographical distinctions. Whenever, humankind tried to cross and conquer a demarcated contour prescribe by nature to it, astonishingly, within no time nature retaliates with a greater fury. As, Friedrick Engels the coeval philosophical companion of Karl Marx has offered a prophetic warning in his book, he maintains that “we take great pride of human conquest over nature. For each such conquest nature takes its revenge on us…At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside of nature”. The ongoing Corona plague is one such retaliations of nature.
The intimidations of plagues crossing territorial state boundaries and their dire consequences cannot be underestimated. Let’s turn back a page of history and see what could be the dire repercussions of plagues on human history. During fifth century BC at the middle of Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta a deadly plague broke out in Athens which was the formidable superpower of Greek archipelago of antiquity, the plague broke the Athenian society and its army simultaneously. Eventually, this plague became one of the decisive factors for losing war by Athens to Sparta. Around, 1330, another one of the deadliest plague, very notoriously known as the bubonic plague began in China, transmitted from rodents and fleas to humans. Moving rapidly from China to Asian continent and then this plague engulfed the whole Europe, it is estimated that the plague killed half of the population of Europe and entirely restructured the European political landscape as well. The epidemic, like others before and after, followed trade routes as Corona epidemic did, as we know Wuhan is the commercial crossroad of China for within and without from where the corona outbreak took place.
Moreover, during and after renaissance period, Europeans carried many communicable European diseases to the distant shores of the Americas, perishing the native populations. Expanding trade and travel in the nineteenth century within Europe and between Europe and Africa accelerated

the spread of deadly diseases such as cholera and malaria, leading to the first International Sanitary Conference in 1851. Between the 9th century and first half of 20th century, almost eleven International Sanitary Conferences developed procedures to prevent the spread of contagious and infectious diseases.
The recent outbreak of Corona epidemic is not de novo to humankind, it would be appropriate to call it the reincarnation of the previous ones, though; it has bitterly jeopardized the hyper modernized world causing irreparable loss to life and property throughout the world. Global economy is at its knees and about to tremble, during the first quarter of 21st century, the US economy shrink at its fastest rate since the great depression. Besides, the specter of unemployment is hunting down every nook and corner of the world. The Chinese economy is likely to be hit further by this specter and it has already reduced global demand for its products due to the effect of Corona. Furthermore, Corona virus death tool has crossed 150,000 globally; it seems that the mother earth has gone paralyzed. But, when thinking about disease as a transnational threat to the world community, we should remember that, like other threats, global health issues also bestow great opportunities for cooperation among us as Humans, Homo Sapiens, Social animals whatever it is that unites us and makes us one for a greater cause.
As we know that nature is the one of the wonderful frenemy of humankind, certainly the world is like the coliseum where nature and humankind engage in various competitions to nail one another, according to my personal observation health issue is one of the key spots where time and again nature used to hit us badly below the belt and the global heath issue is one of the main Achilles heel of ours from antiquity to modernity. Finally, if we analyze the ongoing corona scenario its implications and its repercussions, I would like to conclude that with all its potential threats and dire consequences the corona issue is a vital arena for the consolidation of cooperation among us as we the humans and to curb this epidemic and to nub corona at the bop very soon. Anything which we can do is only try, because we all know that “The Wish is Father to the Thought”, let’s give a damn try, keep distance, give heed to the medics and above all what we need is physical distance but social connection.