We live in an age of globalized internet where news spreads at a very fast, lightning speed.

Mankind is struggling with a coronavirus pandemic called COVID-19. The catastrophe is spreading like wildfire all over the world.

This is the 18th pandemic in human history. The difference between a pandemic and an epidemic is that the former is a catastrophe that spreads all over the globe.

According to historical records, the first pandemic was the plague of Justinian, which swept across Europe and Asia in the 11th and 12th centuries and wiped out hundreds of millions of people around the world.

The "black death" plague, which began in China in the mid-14th century and devastated the whole Europe, killed 34 million people. The cholera pandemic, which has struck seven times since the beginning of the 19th century, has killed hundreds of millions of people.

Between 1918 and 1919, the Spanish flu pandemic affected 550 million people worldwide and killed 15 percent of them.

In 2009-2010, the H1N1 virus, dubbed "swine flu," began in Mexico and spread around the world, infecting 220,000 people and killing nearly 2,000 of them.

AIDS, which began in South Africa in 1981, has so far infected 60 million people, 25 million of whom have died.

These numbers should make each of us think seriously. It is true that in the past, infectious diseases were difficult to overcome due to the low level of medical literacy and the lack of drugs for treatment.

However, history has shown that the plague pandemic of the XI-XII centuries spread to the Fergana Valley. The plague was very difficult to overcome. At that time, one of the Islamic scholars saved the population from the plague by using the 7 methods described in the hadiths. These methods are as follows:

✅ isolation of patients;
         ✅ observing cleanliness;
         ✅ eating healthy food;
         ✅ remaining at home for forty days (quarantine - fr. quarantaine from ital. quarantena - "forty days and forty nights");
         ✅ not crowding (avoiding group prayers);
         ✅ being patient;
         ✅ not panicking.

These methods have not lost their relevance to this day.

After the disease was reported in Uzbekistan, the government took wise decisions to prevent its spread. We need to draw the right conclusions from the experience of China, France, Italy and other countries and prevent the spread of the disease as much as possible.

This pandemic will be overcome if each of us sets an example and acts in a disciplined manner, if we stand together, strictly adhere to the conditions of quarantine, do not hide the sick and allow them to receive timely medical care.

Let's not forget that it is up to us to prolong or shorten the pandemic. I believe that the wisdom, patience, compassion, Islamic honesty and faith of our people will pass this test easily. May God protect our people from any calamities.

Bakhtiyor Turaev's article "What is said in the hadiths to overcome the pandemic" was used.

N.Bekniyozov, STC Navoi regional department