Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 34 to 40.
A pandemic is a worldwide outbreak of disease. It happens when a bacterium or virus becomes capable of spreading across a large region, continent, or worldwide. It causes severe contagious illnesses which can spread quickly from one person to another. Throughout history, there have been many pandemics that have had significant effects on various populations.
Pandemics have the capability of killing large portions of people in a place. In 1347, the Black Death, a plague in Europe, spread and killed 75 million people, a whopping one-third of Europe's population. When European explorers began encountering other places in the world, they tended to spread diseases to the local population. One notable example is the complete destruction of the Guanches on the Canary Islands. The majority of tribe members were killed by disease brought by Spanish invaders in the 15th century.
In fact, many countries and cultures faced deadly pandemics after international exploration became possible. It is believed that Columbus and his crew brought a strain of syphilis back with them to Europe from the New World. In Europe, the virus was able to mutate because of the location's different conditions. Additionally, European people that were sent to work in Asia were killed by disease. Intercultural mixing, exposure to new viruses, and the transportation of diseases led to many pandemics across the world.
Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease. It is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2. This epidemic first broke out in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Many efforts to control its spread have failed, which allows the virus to reach almost every country. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30th January 2020 and a pandemic on 11th March 2020. By 10th April 2022, the pandemic had caused more than 498 million cases and 6.17 million deaths, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.
