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This paper estimates how previous major pandemic events affected economic and gender inequalities in the short- to medium run. We consider the impact of six major pandemic episodes – H3N2 Flu (1968), SARS (2003), H1N1 Swine Flu (2009), MERS (2012), Ebola (2014), and Zika (2016) – on cross-country inequalities in a sample of up to 180 countries observed over 1950-2019. Results show that the past pandemics have moderately increased income inequality in the affected countries in the period of four to five years after the pandemic’s start. On the other hand, we do not find any robust negative impacts on wealth inequality. The results concerning gender inequality are less consistent, but we find some evidence of declining gender equality among the hardest hit countries, as well as of growing gender gaps in unemployment within the four years after the onset of the pandemic.

A pandemic of El-Tor-type cholera began in south-east Asia during 1961. Many members of the medical profession, as well as government officials and the public, were confused by the relationship between the disease caused by the El Tor organism and classic Asiatic cholera. The authors observed large numbers of cholera patients admitted to San Lazaro Hospital, Manila, early in the Philippine epidemic, and in the present communication they draw attention to certain clinical and epidemiological features of so-called El Tor cholera. The paper not only describes the patients and the epidemic, but also suggests some of the treatment needs during such an epidemic. No indication was found that the disease caused by the classic cholera vibrio is different from that which is designated the El Tor variant.

In 1957 the World Health Organization arranged a survey of horse and swine sera in a number of countries in order to gain information on the role and importance of animals in the epidemiology of influenza. The veterinary services of the countries concerned were requested to obtain blood specimens from these animals, if possible both before and after the human pandemic of Asian influenza. This paper reports on the results of haemagglutination-inhibition and complement-fixation tests performed on these sera in WHO Influenza Centres and other collaborating laboratories.It is apparent from these results that the Asian (A2) strain can cause natural inapparent infection in horses and swine. Equine influenza caused by the A-equi strain is also present in many countries from which it had not been previously reported, and infection in pigs with the A-swine strain, long known in the USA, has now been recorded in at least two European countries.In a concluding section, the findings in this survey are related to other observations on the position of animals in influenza epidemiology, and future research needs are outlined.