Great Plagues - Pandemics of Past and Present

It’s popularly thought that 17th-century London was overcrowded, filthy and awash with sewage, an epidemic disaster waiting to happen. It’s certainly true that the plague of 1665 killed at least 70,000 Londoners and probably thousands more, and that victims’ corpses were buried in emergency mass graves around the metropolis, from Shoreditch to Soho. But there are still questions about the epidemic - what caused it? What was its social impact? And what lessons does it have for modern epidemiologists?

In her talk, VANESSA HARDING will review our changing knowledge of the Great Plague

Pandemics have continued to make headlines over recent years with scares over SARS, H5N1 and Swine Flu. In 2014 it was Ebola which multiplied rapidly, spreading from West Africa to Dallas, New York, London and Madrid, causing fear of a global pandemic. Yet none of these diseases have taken hold in the developed world.

In his talk, CHRIS DYE, the director of strategy in the World Heath Organisation will explain why Ebola has been a disaster for West Africa but not elsewhere, and what diseases we should really fear as potential causes of mass fatalities in the 21st century.