Extra Credit: Contagion

I had heard of the movie Contagion many years ago when it first came out but never had an interest in seeing it. After listening to the lectures on Epidemiology I became intrigued with the spread of disease and decided to watch it. Overall I really enjoyed that movie and give it 5 stars. I thought that for the most part Contagion accurately depicted the spread of disease and showed the effect it could have on a world wide scale.    

The story begins when Beth, a business woman on a trip to Asia, returns home to the United States and develops what seems to be a cold. However, within two days she ends up having a severe seizures and is sent to the hospital where she suddenly dies.  At first doctors did not realize the severity of this event and they inform her husband Mitch (played by Matt Damon in the movie) that the cause of death was unknown. Mitch then returns home to find his son Clark dead in his bedroom and realizes that he contracted something very contagious from his mother because Clark had similar cold symptoms a few days prior. The movie then depicted the chain of command that would be activated in the event of disease outbreak starting with the public health department of Minnesota and progressing to the notification of federal agencies (CDC and WHO). Eventually when the gravity of the situation leads to the public there is complete chaos. Though this was a dramatic depiction, I believe something similar would occur if this type of outbreak were to occur in real life.  Investigators attempt to trace the spread of the disease from Beth using descriptive epidemiology and detailing her every move.

It was very interesting to see how the principles discussed in class would play out in real life, of course this was a Hollywood version but nonetheless it gave me a better idea of the work that goes on with health professionals and the CDC behind the scenes and what could occur when such a virulent disease of unknown origin attacks a community.

 Eventually research lead to the creation of a vaccination (an example of primary prevention) and due to the limited quantity they decided to distribute the vaccination based on a birthday lottery. So, people with a birthday on the date drawn were to receive the vaccination first, and so on. 

The basic epidemiological model states that in order for a disease to spread there must be an agent, a host, and environment. The host and environment were revealed at the end of the movie when they showed a flashback of how the virus spread to Beth. An infected bat is shown eating a banana, a piece of the banana drops into a pig pen, the pig eats the banana and becomes infected. That pig is later selected to be butchered. The chef buttering the pig does not wash his hand before shaking hands with Beth and therefore spreads the infection to her.