Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Medicine organized the “New and Re-emerging Infections in a Changing World” program. The moderation of the program was undertaken by Dr. Zozan Güleken, Lecturer at Üsküdar Üniversitesi Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology. The guest of the program was Public Health Specialist Dr. Kaya Sami Nizamoğlu.
“Parasites are organisms that work against symbiosis”
In the program held on an online platform, Dr. Kaya Sami Nizamoğlu, addressing how parasites spread, said: “Parasites do not just come to us randomly. Parasites are organisms that work against symbiosis. They arrive, choose, settle, and infest according to people's living areas, socio-cultural lives, lifestyles, the people they live with, and the characteristics of the environment they create. This is because they are very simple organisms with very high adaptability. Therefore, they are very suitable for adaptation and species jumping. Consequently, any critical change in us, that is, a change in our lifestyle, immediately causes changes in our pathogen pool.”
“We are contracting new diseases from the animals we live with”
Nizamoğlu, speaking about the role of animals in epidemic diseases, said: “We are contracting new diseases from the animals we live with. And these are turning into diseases that belong to us. For example, smallpox originated from cattle. What is the reason for these diseases? Because we started living with animals. While raising and breeding them, those diseases passed to us. For example, there is a disease called canine distemper in dogs, which is the ancestor of measles in humans.”
“They started a magnificent era with antibiotics”
Dr. Kaya Sami Nizamoğlu stated, “In the first half of the 1900s, we thought we had defeated all infections in the world. Indeed, it was believed to be so. They started a magnificent era with antibiotics. It was said that we no longer had any problems with infections. What was told to the world was: ‘We no longer have any business with infections; now we will only deal with chronic diseases, we will only die from diseases like cancer, epidemics will not kill us.’ Such an unfounded atmosphere had been entered, but after 1970, many epidemic diseases emerged, and 70% of them were diseases transmitted from animals.”