Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 37, Number 6, 1 June 2020 — Infectious Diseases in Hawai'i [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Infectious Diseases in Hawai'i

By Kalani Akana, Ph.D. Epidemics are terrifying. We see this terror through the Covid-19 disease of this time - a true infectious disease. It is a worldwide pandemic. It is something ourpredecessors knew too well from the time Captain Cook arrived, namely, that epidemics were brought from foreign places. Therefore, it is not surprising that Hawai'i citizens would oppose visitors from coming to Hawai'i because the first patients of corona in Beloved Hawai'i were visitors or those locals who visited other foreign lands or "hotspots" of the virus. Epidemics and pandemics are infectious diseases. Cook brought venereal disease to Hawai'i. It arrived in Kaua'i and nine months later spread to Verdant Hawai'i Island. When Liholiho and Kamāmalu visited England they were stricken with the measles upon visiting an orphanage. Their sad deaths occured in 1 824. Subsequently , from the end of 1848 to the first half of 1849, a wave of epidemics arrived: whooping cough, ehol-

era and influenza. Approximately 10,000 people died. Levi Chamberlin wrote that in 1 849 about half of the population had passed away and that "Greater was the number of the dead than the living." According to a missionary letter from Hilo, the measles arrived there on the Independence from Mazatlan, Mexico. Within two months it spread and infected the whole Hawaiian archipelago. The disease spread and wiped out entire villages and families. And, through contact tracing, a ship that arrived from California was identified as the one that brought whooping cough. Introduced in the same way was smallpox in 1853 and leprosy sometime before 1865, and the Bubonic Plague of 1900 although the latter was transmitted through fleas on rats. One of the worst pandemics in Hawai'i was the Spanish Flu (la grippe) of 1918. It arrived at Schofield military base and spread throughout O'ahu. The Spanish Flu first appeared in America in Kansas and arrived in Hawai'i and elsewhere throughout the world through the deployment of troops to Europe during World War I. The response from the leaders of the Territory of Hawai'i was to not even look towards the consequences of the disease in Hawai'i. They ignored, stalled and did not adequately prepare. As a result, more than 2,000 lives were lost. Therefore, the lessons of the past are known. The spear of wisdom will defend Hawai'i. ■