A pandemic is an outbreak of an infectious disease that has
spread across a large region, for instance, multiple continents or worldwide,
affecting a large number of people. Throughout human history, there have been
several pandemics of illnesses such as smallpox and tuberculosis. In this
article, we will see the 10 worst pandemics in the world history.
10. Antonine Plague of 165 and 180 AD
The old pandemic, ‘Antonine Plague’ also known as ‘Plague of
Galen’, took the lives of five million people in Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, and
Italy between 165 and 180 AD.
The Plague of Galen is thought to have been either Smallpox or
Measles though the true cause is still unexplained.
The unknown illness was brought back to Rome by soldiers retreating from Mesopotamia around 165AD; unknowingly, they had spread a disease that would end up killing over 5 million people and decimating the Roman army.
09. Justinian Plague from 541 to 542 AD
Justinian Plague is thought to have killed half of the
population (5000 people per day) in Europe in 541 and 542 AD. The plague was an
outbreak of the bubonic plague that afflicted the Byzantine Empire and
Mediterranean port cities and took the lives of 25 million people in its
year-long reign of terror.
Bubonic plague is one of the three types of plague caused by the
bacterium Yersinia pestis and, is mainly spread by infected fleas from small
animals. It may also result from exposure to the body fluids from a dead
plague-infected animal.
08. The Black Death (1346 and 1353)
From 1346 to 1353, an outbreak of 'The Bubonic Plague' ravaged
Europe, Africa, and Asia, with a predicted death toll between 75 and 200
million people.
Beginning from Asia, it crossed continents via the fleas living
on the rats that so often lived aboard merchant ships, whose harbors were major
urban centers at the time and, was the perfect breeding ground for the rats and
fleas, and thus the insidious bacterium flourished, devastating three
continents in its wake.
07. Third Cholera Pandemic from 1852 to 1860
Considered the most lethal of the seven cholera pandemics, the
third major outbreak of cholera in the 19th century continued for eight years
from 1852 to 1860.
The third Cholera Pandemic was originated in India, spreading
from the Ganges River Delta before moving through Asia, Europe, North America,
and Africa that took the lives of over a million people.
British physician John Snow identified that contaminated water
as the means of transmission for the disease which took 23,000 lives in Great
Britain.
06. Flu Pandemic from 1889 to 1890
‘Asiatic Flu’ or ‘Russian Flu’ as it was named this strain was
thought to be an outbreak of the ‘Influenza A’ virus subtype ‘H2N2’.
The first cases were observed in May 1889 in three separate and
remote places, Bukhara in Central Asia, Athabasca in northwestern Canada, and
Greenland.
The rapid growth of the population in the 19th century,
particularly in urban areas, helped the flu spread claiming the lives of over a
million people.
05. Sixth Cholera Pandemic from 1910-1911
Like its five previous incarnations, the Sixth Cholera Pandemic
arose in India and killed over 800,000, before reaching to the Middle East,
North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Russia.
American health authorities, with experience, quickly sought to
isolate the infected, and in the end, only 11 deaths occurred in the U.S.
Meanwhile, by 1923 Cholera cases had been cut down dramatically,
although it was still a constant in India.
04. Spanish Flu Pandemic in between 1918 and 1920
Thought to be the ancestor of the coronavirus outbreak in 2020
the world struggling with, the fatal outbreak of influenza, colloquially known
as ‘Spanish Flu’, tore across the globe between 1918 and 1920.
The Spanish Flu Pandemic infected a third of the world’s population
and claimed the lives of 20–50 million people.
03. Asian Flu in between 1956 and 1958
‘Asian Flu’ was a pandemic outbreak of ‘Influenza A’ of the
‘H2N2 subtype’, that originated in China in 1956 and lasted until 1958.
In its two-year spree, Asian Flu traveled from the Chinese
province of Guizhou to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States, causing
approximately 2 million deaths, 69,800 of those in the US alone.
02. Hong Kong Flu Pandemic in 1968
The Flu Pandemic in 1968, often classified as the ‘Hong Kong
Flu’, was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus, a genetic
by-product of the H2N2 subtype.
In Hong Kong, it took only 17 days before outbreaks of the virus
were reported in Singapore and Vietnam, and within three months had spread to
the Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States.
Having a low mortality rate (0.5%) it still resulted in the
deaths of more than a million people, including 500,000 residents of Hong Kong,
almost 15 percent of its population at the time.
01. HIV/AIDS Pandemic at its peak from 2005 to 2012
HIV/AIDS was first identified in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo in 1976, and later truly established itself as a global pandemic, killing
more than 36 million people since 1981.
Currently, between 31 and 35 million people are suffering from
HIV, the vast majority of those are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5 percent of
the inhabitants is infected.
Between 2005 and 2012 the annual global deaths from HIV/AIDS
dropped from 2.2 million to 1.6 million. The mortality losses by HIV/AIDS was
estimated at 36 million in total.
The present pandemic
The World Health Organization on March 11 declared the
coronavirus crisis a pandemic but added that it is not too late for countries
to act.
COVID-19 is affecting 157 countries and townships around the
world.
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