The most dangerous epidemics in the world. Epidemic
Epidemic (Greek ἐπιδημία - epidemic disease, from ἐπι - on, among and δῆμος - people) in Greek means "epidemic disease among the people." Since ancient times, diseases that progress in time and space and exceed the usual incidence rate in a given area have been called so. But today we will talk about pandemics - such epidemics that spread throughout the territory of an entire country, several countries, or even beyond the borders of the country.
Plague
When talking about epidemics, the “black death” comes to mind first of all, a plague pandemic that wiped out a significant part of the population of Europe and passed through North Africa and the island of Greenland in 1346-1353. The first mention of this terrible disease dates back to 1200 BC. The event is also described in the Old Testament: the Israelites in the war with the Philistines are pursued by failures, after another battle, the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and deliver it to the city of Azot at the feet of the statue of their god Dagon. Soon a plague hits the city. The ark was sent to another city, where the disease broke out again, and then to a third city, in which the kings of the five cities of the Philistines decided to return the relic to its place, fearing new victims. The Philistine priests associated this disease with rodents.
The first recorded world plague epidemic began during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I and manifested itself over two centuries from 541 to 750. The plague came to Constantinople through the Mediterranean trade channels and spread through Byzantium and neighboring countries. In 544, up to 5 thousand people per day died in the capital, sometimes the death rate reached 10 thousand people. In total, about 10 million people died, in Constantinople itself 40% of the inhabitants died. The plague did not spare either the common people or the kings - with that level of development of medicine and hygiene, nothing depended on the availability of money and lifestyle.
The plague continued to repeatedly "raid" the cities. This was facilitated by the development of trade. In 1090, merchants brought the plague to Kyiv, where they sold 7,000 coffins over several winter months. In total, about 10 thousand people died. In the plague epidemic in 1096-1270, Egypt lost more than a million inhabitants.
The largest and most famous plague pandemic was the Black Death of 1346-1353. The sources of the epidemic were China and India, the disease reached Europe with the Mongol troops and trade caravans. At least 60 million people died, in some regions the plague wiped out from a third to half of the population. Later epidemics were repeated in 1361 and 1369. Genetic studies of the remains of disease victims showed that the same plague bacillus yersinia pestis caused the epidemic - before that, there were disputes about which disease caused numerous deaths in that period. Mortality in the bubonic form of the plague reaches 95%.
An important role in the spread of the disease, in addition to the economic factor, namely trade, was influenced by the social one: wars, poverty and vagrancy, and the ecological one: droughts, downpours, and other weather misfortunes. The lack of food caused a weakening of the immune system in humans, and also served as a reason for the migration of rodents that carried fleas with bacteria. And, of course, hygiene in many countries was horrendous (or, simply, lacking), from the point of view of modern man.
In the Middle Ages, in the monastic environment, the rejection of life's pleasures, the conscious punishment of the sinful body, was widespread. This practice included the refusal to wash: “Healthy bodily and especially young in age should wash as little as possible,” said St. Benedict. Masses of empty pots flowed along the city streets like a river. Rats were so common, they communicated so closely with a person, that at that time there was a recipe in case a rat bit or wet someone. Another reason for the spread of the disease was the use of the dead as biological weapons: during the siege of the fortress they threw corpses, which made it possible to destroy entire cities. In China and Europe, corpses were dumped into bodies of water to infect settlements.
The third plague pandemic originated in the Chinese province of Yunnan in 1855. It lasted for several decades - by 1959 the number of victims worldwide fell to 200 people, but the disease continued to be recorded. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, plague outbreaks occurred in the Russian Empire and the USSR, in the USA, India, South Africa, China, Japan, Ecuador, Venezuela and many other countries. In total, during this period, the disease claimed about 12 million lives.
In 2015, scientists found traces of yersinia pestis in a 20-million-year-old piece of amber. The rod is similar to its descendants and is located in the same part of the flea as in modern spreaders of the bacterium. Blood stains were found on the proboscis and on the front straps of the insect. That is, the plague-spreader has supposedly been around for 20 million years, and has been transmitted in the same way throughout that time.
Although we began to wash our hands more often and cuddle less with infected rats, the disease did not disappear. Every year about 2.5 thousand people fall ill with plague. Fortunately, the mortality rate has dropped from 95% to 7%. Separate cases are registered almost annually in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and Vietnam, Africa, the USA and Peru. In Russia, from 1979 to 2016, not a single plague disease was registered, although tens of thousands of people are at risk of infection in the territory of natural foci. The last case was registered on July 12, 2016 - a ten-year-old boy was admitted to the infectious department with a temperature of 40 degrees.
smallpox
Mortality from smallpox is up to 40%, but recovered people lose their eyesight completely or partially, scars from ulcers remain on the skin. The disease is caused by two types of viruses Variola major and Variola minor, and the lethality of the latter is 1-3%. Viruses are transmitted from person to person without the involvement of animals, as is the case with plague. A disease that causes many ulcers on the body - pustules, has been known since the beginning of our era.
The first epidemics were noted in Asia: in the 4th century in China, in the 6th century in Korea. In 737, smallpox caused the death of 30% of the Japanese population. The first evidence of the presence of smallpox in the West is found in the Qur'an. In the 6th century, smallpox took place in Byzantium, and after that, Muslim Arabs who conquered new lands spread the virus from Spain to India. In the 15th century, almost everyone in Europe had smallpox. The Germans have a saying "Few will escape smallpox and love." In 1527, smallpox, which came to America, claimed millions of lives, it mowed down entire tribes of aborigines (there is a version according to which the conquistadors deliberately threw smallpox-infected blankets to the Indians).
Smallpox was compared to the plague. Although the latter had a much higher mortality rate, smallpox was more familiar - it was constantly present in people's lives, "filled the cemeteries with the dead, tormenting with constant fear all those who had not yet suffered from it." At the beginning of the 19th century, 40,000 people died in Prussia every year. Every eighth case in Europe died, and among children the chance of dying was one in three. Every year from smallpox, until the 20th century, about one and a half million people died.
Mankind began early to care about the methods of treating this terrible disease, other than dressing the patient in red clothes, praying for his health and wrapping protective amulets around him. The Persian scientist Az-Razi, who lived in the second half of the 9th - the first half of the 10th century, in his work "On Smallpox and Measles" noted immunity to re-disease and mentioned the inoculation of mild human smallpox. The method consisted of inoculating a healthy person with pus from a mature pustule of a smallpox patient.
The method reached Europe by 1718, brought by the wife of the British ambassador in Constantinople. After experiments on criminals and orphans, smallpox was instilled in the family of the British king, and then to other people on a larger scale. Vaccination gave 2% mortality, while smallpox killed ten times more people. But there was a problem: the vaccine itself sometimes caused epidemics. Later it turned out that forty years of variolation caused 25 thousand more deaths than smallpox in the same period before the use of this method.
At the end of the 16th century, scientists discovered that cowpox, which manifests itself in the form of pustules in cows and horses, protects a person from contracting smallpox. The cavalry suffered much less from smallpox than the infantry. Milkmaids died much less often from the disease. The first public inoculation of cowpox took place in 1796, then the eight-year-old boy James Phipps received immunity, and he failed to inoculate natural human smallpox after a month and a half. Soldiers and sailors in 1800 began to be vaccinated without fail, and in 1807 Bavaria became the first country where vaccination was mandatory for the entire population.
For inoculation, material from smallpox from one person was transferred to another person. Together with lymph, syphilis and other diseases were transferred. As a result, we decided to use calf pockmarks as the starting material. In the 20th century, the vaccine began to be dried to make it resistant to temperature. Prior to this, children had to be used as well: in the early 19th century, 22 children were used to deliver smallpox from Spain to North and South America for the vaccine. Two were vaccinated with smallpox, and after the appearance of pustules, the next two were infected.
The disease did not bypass the Russian Empire, it exterminated people from 1610 in Siberia, Peter II died from it. The first vaccination in the country was given in 1768 to Catherine II, who decided to set an example for her subjects. Below is the family coat of arms of the nobleman Alexander Markov-Ospenny, who received the nobility for the fact that material for vaccination was taken from his hand. In 1815, a special smallpox vaccination committee was formed, which oversaw the compilation of a list of children and the training of specialists.
In the RSFSR, a decree on compulsory vaccination against smallpox was introduced in 1919. Thanks to this decision, the number of cases decreased significantly over time. If in 1919 186 thousand patients were registered, then in 1925 - 25 thousand, in 1935 - a little more than 3 thousand. By 1936, smallpox was completely eradicated in the USSR.
Outbreaks of the disease were recorded later. Moscow artist Alexander Kokorekin brought the disease from India in December 1959 and “gave it” along with the gifts to his mistress and wife. The artist himself is dead. During the outbreak, 19 people were infected with it, and 23 more people from them. The outbreak ended in death for three. To avoid an epidemic, the KGB traced all of Kokorekin's contacts and found his mistress. The hospital was closed for quarantine, after which they began to vaccinate the population of Moscow against smallpox.
Smallpox killed up to 500 million people in America, Asia and Europe in the 20th century. Smallpox was last reported on October 26, 1977 in Somalia. The World Health Organization announced in 1980 that the disease had been defeated.
For now, both plague and smallpox have remained mostly in test tubes. The incidence of plague, which still threatens some regions, has decreased to 2.5 thousand people a year. Smallpox, transmitted for thousands of years from one person to another, was defeated more than thirty years ago. But the threat remains: due to the fact that these diseases are rarely vaccinated, they can easily be used as biological weapons, which people already did more than a thousand years ago.
Cholera
Outbreaks of cholera were observed 7 times in less than 200 years, and typhus - only during the First World War in Russia and Poland, 3.5 million people died from it.
Cholera is caused by motile bacteria, vibrio cholerae, Vibrio cholerae. Vibrios reproduce in plankton in salt and fresh water. The mechanism of infection with cholera is fecal-oral. The pathogen is excreted from the body with feces, urine or vomit, and enters the new organism through the mouth - with dirty water or through unwashed hands. Epidemics are caused by the mixing of sewage with drinking water and the lack of disinfection.
The bacteria release an exotoxin, which in the human body leads to the release of ions and water from the intestines, leading to diarrhea and dehydration. Some varieties of bacteria cause cholera, others cause cholera-like dysentery.
The disease leads to hypovolemic shock, a condition caused by a rapid decrease in blood volume due to water loss, and death.
Cholera has been known to mankind since the time of the "father of medicine" Hippocrates, who died between 377 and 356 BC. He described the disease long before the first pandemic, which began in 1816. All pandemics spread from the Ganges valley. The spread was facilitated by heat, water pollution and mass congestion of people near rivers.
The causative agent of cholera was isolated by Robert Koch in 1883. The founder of microbiology during the outbreaks of cholera in Egypt and India from the feces of patients and the intestinal contents of the corpses of the dead, as well as from water, grew microbes on gelatin-coated glass plates. He was able to isolate microbes that looked like curved sticks that looked like a comma. Vibrios were called "Koch's Comma".
Scientists identify seven cholera pandemics:
First pandemic, 1816-1824
Second pandemic, 1829-1851
Third pandemic, 1852-1860
Fourth pandemic, 1863-1875
Fifth pandemic, 1881-1896
Sixth pandemic, 1899-1923
Seventh pandemic, 1961-1975
A possible cause of the first cholera epidemic was abnormal weather, which caused a mutation of the cholera vibrio. In April 1815, the Tambora volcano erupted on the territory of present-day Indonesia, a catastrophe of 7 points claimed the lives of ten thousand inhabitants of the island. Up to 50,000 people then died from the consequences, including starvation.
One of the consequences of the eruption was "a year without a summer." In March 1816 it was winter in Europe, in April and May there was much rain and hail, in June and July there were frosts in America. Storms tormented Germany, snow fell every month in Switzerland. A mutation in Vibrio cholerae, perhaps coupled with famine due to cold weather, contributed to the spread of cholera in 1817 throughout Asia. From the Ganges, the disease reached Astrakhan. In Bangkok, 30,000 people died.
The same factor that started it could stop the pandemic: the abnormal cold of 1823-1824. In total, the first pandemic lasted eight years, from 1816 to 1824.
The calm was short-lived. Just five years later, in 1829, a second pandemic broke out on the banks of the Ganges. It lasted for 20 years - until 1851. Colonial trade, improved transport infrastructure, and the movement of armies helped the disease spread throughout the world. Cholera reached Europe, the USA and Japan. And, of course, she came to Russia. The peak in our country came in 1830-1831. Cholera riots swept across Russia. Peasants, workers and soldiers refused to endure quarantine and high food prices and therefore killed officers, merchants and doctors.
In Russia, during the second cholera epidemic, 466,457 people fell ill, of which 197,069 people died. The spread was facilitated by the return of the Russian army from Asia after the wars with the Persians and Turks.
The third pandemic is attributed to the period from 1852 to 1860. This time, more than a million people died in Russia alone.
In 1854, 616 people died of cholera in London. There were many problems with sewerage and water supply in this city, and the epidemic led to the fact that they began to think about them. Until the end of the 16th century, Londoners took water from wells and the Thames, as well as for money from special cisterns. Then, for two hundred years, pumps were installed along the Thames, which began to pump water to several areas of the city. But in 1815, sewers were allowed to be brought into the same Thames. People washed, drank, cooked food on the water, which was then filled with their own waste products - for seven whole years. The sewers, of which there were about 200,000 in London at the time, were not cleaned, leading to the "Great Stench" of 1858.
London physician John Snow established in 1854 that the disease was transmitted through contaminated water. Society did not pay much attention to this news. Snow had to prove his point to the authorities. First, he persuaded to remove the handle of the water pump on Broad Street, where there was a hotbed of the epidemic. He then drew up a map of cholera cases, which showed the relationship between the places of the disease and its sources. The largest number of deaths was recorded in the vicinity of this water intake column. There was one exception: no one died in the monastery. The answer was simple - the monks drank exclusively beer of their own production. Five years later, a new scheme for the sewer system was adopted.
The seventh and last cholera pandemic to date began in 1961. It was caused by a more environmentally resistant vibrio cholerae, called El Tor, after the quarantine station where the mutated vibrio was discovered in 1905.
By 1970 El Tor cholera had spread to 39 countries. By 1975 it was observed in 30 countries of the world. At the moment, the danger of importing cholera from some countries has not gone away.
The highest rate of infection is shown by the fact that in 1977 a cholera outbreak in the Middle East in just a month spread to eleven neighboring countries, including Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran.
In 2016, cholera is not as terrible as a hundred and two hundred years ago. Much more people have access to clean water, sewerage is rarely discharged into the same reservoirs from which people drink. Wastewater treatment plants and plumbing are on a completely different level, with several degrees of purification.
Although in some countries cholera outbreaks still occur. One of the most recent cholera outbreaks to date began (and continues) in Haiti in 2010. In total, more than 800,000 people were infected. During peak periods, up to 200 people fell ill per day. 9.8 million people live in the country, that is, cholera has affected almost 10% of the population. It is believed that the beginning of the epidemic was laid by Nepalese peacekeepers, who brought cholera into one of the main rivers of the country.
In October 2016, it was reported that Aden, Yemen's second largest city, had 200 cases of cholera, with nine deaths. The disease spread through drinking water. The problem is exacerbated by famine and war. According to the latest data, 4,116 people in all of Yemen are suspected of having cholera.
typhus
Under the name "typhus", which in ancient Greek means "clouding of consciousness", several infectious diseases are hidden at once. They have one common denominator - they are accompanied by mental disorders against the background of fever and intoxication. Typhoid fever was isolated as a separate disease in 1829, and relapsing fever in 1843. Before that, all such diseases had one name.
Typhus
In the United States, this fever is still common, with up to 650 cases of the disease annually recorded. The spread is evidenced by the fact that in the period from 1981 to 1996, the fever was found in every US state, except for Hawaii, Vermont, Maine and Alaska. Even today, when medicine is at a much higher level, the mortality rate is 5-8%. Before the invention of antibiotics, the death rate reached 30%.
In 1908, Nikolai Fedorovich Gamaleya proved that the bacteria that cause typhus are transmitted by lice. Most often - clothes, which is confirmed by outbreaks in the cold season, periods of "lice". Gamaleya substantiated the importance of pest control in order to combat typhus.
Bacteria enter the body through scratches or other breaks in the skin.
After a louse has bitten a person, the disease may not occur. But as soon as a person begins to itch, he rubs the intestinal secretions of the louse, which contain rickettsiae. After 10-14 days, after the incubation period, chills, fever, headache begin. After a few days, a pink rash appears. Patients have disorientation, speech disorders, temperature up to 40 °C. Mortality during an epidemic can be up to 50%.
In 1942, Alexei Vasilyevich Pshenichnov, a Soviet scientist in the field of microbiology and epidemiology, made a huge contribution to the methodology for the prevention and treatment of typhus and developed a vaccine against it. The difficulty in creating a vaccine was that rickettsia cannot be cultivated by conventional methods - bacteria need living animal or human cells. A Soviet scientist developed an original method of infecting blood-sucking insects. Thanks to the rapid launch of the production of this vaccine at several institutes during the Great Patriotic War, the USSR managed to avoid an epidemic.
The time of the first typhus epidemic was determined in 2006, when the remains of people found in a mass grave under the Acropolis of Athens were examined. The "Plague of Thucydides" in one year in 430 BC, the disease killed more than a third of the population of Athens. Modern molecular genetic methods have made it possible to detect the DNA of the causative agent of typhus.
Typhoid sometimes hit armies more effectively than a living enemy. The second major epidemic of this disease dates from 1505-1530. The Italian doctor Fracastor observed her in the French troops besieging Naples. At that time, high mortality and morbidity up to 50% were noted.
In the Patriotic War of 1812, Napoleon lost a third of his troops from typhus. Kutuzov's army lost up to 50% of soldiers from this disease. The next epidemic in Russia was in 1917-1921, this time about three million people died.
Now, antibiotics of the tetracycline group and levomycetin are used to treat typhus. Two vaccines are used to prevent the disease: the Vi-polysaccharide vaccine and the Ty21a vaccine, developed in the 1970s.
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever is characterized by fever, intoxication, skin rashes, and damage to the lymphatic system of the lower small intestine. It is caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi. Bacteria are transmitted by the alimentary, or fecal-oral, route. In 2000, typhoid fever affected 21.6 million people worldwide. Mortality was 1%. One of the most effective ways to prevent typhoid fever is to wash your hands and dishes. As well as careful attention to drinking water.
Patients have a rash - roseola, brachycardia and hypotension, constipation, an increase in the volume of the liver and spleen, and, which is typical for all types of typhus, lethargy, delirium and hallucinations. Patients are hospitalized, given chloramphenicol and biseptol. In the most severe cases, ampicillin and gentamicin are used. In this case, you need to drink plenty of water, it is possible to add glucose-salt solutions. All patients take leukocyte stimulants and angioprotectors.
Relapsing fever
After being bitten by a tick or louse that carries the bacterium, a person begins the first attack, which is characterized by chills followed by fever and headache with nausea. The patient's temperature rises, the skin dries out, the pulse quickens. The liver and spleen enlarge, jaundice may develop. Also noted are signs of heart damage, bronchitis and pneumonia.
From two to six days, an attack continues, which is repeated after 4-8 days. If the disease after a louse bite is characterized by one or two attacks, then tick-borne relapsing fever causes four or more attacks, although they are milder in clinical manifestations. Complications after the disease - myocarditis, eye damage, spleen abscesses, heart attacks, pneumonia, temporary paralysis.
For treatment, antibiotics are used - penicillin, levomycetin, chlortetracycline, as well as arsenic preparations - novarsenol.
Death from relapsing fever is rare, except in Central Africa. Like other types of typhus, the disease depends on socio-economic factors - in particular, on nutrition. Epidemics among populations that lack access to skilled medical care can result in up to 80% mortality.
During the First World War in Sudan, 100,000 people died from relapsing fever, which is 10% of the country's population.
Plague and smallpox humanity managed to drive into a test tube thanks to the high level of modern medicine, but even these diseases sometimes break through to people. And the threat of cholera and typhoid exists even in developed countries, to say nothing of developing ones, in which another epidemic can break out at any moment.
Flu
A viral infectious disease called influenza, one strain of which in 1918-1919 alone claimed the lives of more than 50 million people from an infected third of the world's population, and tuberculosis, due to which 2 million people die every year even now.
The flu is a viral disease, and viruses are very good at mutating. In total, scientists have identified more than two thousand variants of the virus. Several different strains have been killing people by the hundreds of thousands and even millions in the last hundred years alone. Epidemics kill up to half a million people every year.
People of all ages are susceptible to influenza, but it can be most dangerous for children and the elderly. Most often, the disease ends in death when the patient is over sixty-five years old. Epidemics begin mainly in the cold season, at temperatures from +5 to -5, when air humidity decreases, which creates favorable conditions for the virus to enter the human body through the respiratory tract.
After an incubation period that lasts up to three days, the disease begins. When during an illness you feel irritation in the nose, trachea or bronchi, this means that the virus has penetrated the cells of the ciliated epithelium and is now destroying them. The person coughs, sneezes and constantly blows his nose. The virus then enters the bloodstream and spreads throughout the body. The temperature rises, headaches and chills appear. After three to five days of illness, the patient recovers, but he remains tired. In severe forms, influenza can lead to cerebral edema and various complications, including the development of bacterial infections.
The largest pandemic of the "Spanish flu" during the First World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people, by some estimates up to a hundred million. It was the H1N1 strain and it spread all over the world. The name "Spaniard" was obtained only due to the fact that the epidemic, about which all the countries participating in the war were silent, was spoken only in neutral Spain.
The H1N1 virus was a mutated virus common in wild birds. It came from just two mutations in the hemagglutinin molecule, the surface protein of the influenza virus, which provides the ability of the virus to attach itself to the host cell.
In 1918 in Spain, 39% of the country's population was infected with the flu, among which were people in their twenties and forties who were least at risk of catching the disease. People turned blue faces, pneumonia developed. Patients coughed up blood, which they could choke on in the later stages. But most often the disease was asymptomatic. However, some people died the very next day after infection.
The virus has spread throughout the world. It claimed more lives in eighteen months than the First World War itself in four years. There were ten million soldiers killed in the war, twelve million civilians, and about fifty-five million wounded. The "Spanish flu" killed between fifty and one hundred million people, more than five hundred million people were infected. The epidemic was not localized in any one territory, but raged everywhere - in the USA, Europe, the RSFSR, China, Australia. The spread was facilitated by troop movements and developed transport infrastructure.
But why list the countries where the virus has killed people? It's better to say where he didn't. He did not reach the island of Marajo in Brazil. In other places, he sometimes mowed down all the doctors. People were buried without funerals and coffins, buried in mass graves.
The percentage of deaths from the population of the country (not from those infected) ranged from 0.1% in Uruguay and Argentina to 23% in Samoa. In the RSFSR, with a population of 88 million, 3 million people died. But today, the same "Spaniard" would not be able to achieve the same result. Over the past hundred years, humanity has accumulated antibodies to various strains of the flu virus - so not only viruses can mutate.
The Spanish flu has become the official version of the cause of death of the famous Russian silent film actress - Vera Kholodnaya. In February 1919, she fell into the snow from an overturned sleigh, and the next day she developed a fever. A few days later, on February 16, 1919, Vera Kholodnaya died. The sister of the actress recalled:
“There was a real epidemic in Odessa, and the disease was very difficult, but for Vera it was somehow especially difficult. Professors Korovitsky and Uskov said that the "Spanish flu" was running through her like a pneumonic plague ... Everything was done to save her. How she wanted to live!”
The Asian flu caused the second influenza pandemic in the 20th century. The H2N2 virus was discovered in the People's Republic of China in 1956. The pandemic has reached Singapore and the United States. In the United States, the death toll has reached 66,000. Globally, the virus has killed up to four million people. The vaccine developed helped stop the spread of the disease by 1958.
The Asian flu virus has mutated. In 1968-1969, he caused an epidemic of Hong Kong influenza: H3N2. Then the disease claimed the lives of a million people.
"Wake you up some type
And let him into the world, where in the past there were wars, stench and cancer,
Where the Hong Kong flu is defeated.
Are you happy with everything ready, fool?
Vladimir Vysotsky. "The Ballad of Going to Paradise"
You probably remember the recent bird flu hysteria. It was a strain of H5N1 - the "heir" of two previous causes of influenza pandemics. From February 2003 to February 2008, 361 people contracted the disease and 227 died. And bird flu again threatens Russia. On November 23, 2016, it was reported that the first case of avian influenza was registered in the subsidiary farms of Kalmykia. The disease could be carried by migratory birds. In the Netherlands, dead birds with confirmed influenza infection were found even earlier.
Another strain of influenza that can spread from animal to human with a number of mutations is called swine flu. Outbreaks of this flu occurred in 1976, 1988, and 2007. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised serious concerns about this strain in 2009, when the disease caused a high death rate in Mexico. On April 29, the pandemic threat level was raised from 4 to 5 points out of 6 possible. By August 2009, more than 250,000 infections and 2,627 deaths had been reported worldwide. The infection has spread all over the world.
On June 11, 2009, the WHO declared the first pandemic in forty years, the swine flu pandemic.
There is an opinion that it is useless to do flu shots, since this disease has too many strains. That is why it is necessary to vaccinate not immediately from everything, but from viruses potentially threatening in a given period of time. For example, if the relevant services have already detected swine flu and predict its spread throughout the country, then it makes sense to think about vaccination. But when we have H1N1 every year, then maybe it’s worth preparing for it in advance just in case?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is a widespread disease in the world. To understand the scale: a third of the world's population is infected with it. Eight million people are infected with it every year. For two million of them, the disease will become fatal.
The causative agent of tuberculosis is Koch's wand. These are bacteria from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex group. The bacterium infects the lungs, sometimes affecting other organs. It is transmitted very easily - by airborne droplets during a conversation, due to coughing or sneezing of an infected person. It proceeds in an asymptomatic form, and then from a latent form it can go into an active one. Patients cough, sometimes with blood, they have a fever, weakness, they lose weight.
With an open form, there are disintegrations, or cavities, in the lungs. With a closed form, mycobacteria are not detected in sputum, so patients are of little danger to others.
Tuberculosis was virtually incurable until the 20th century. At the same time, he was called "consumption" from the word "waste away", although this disease was sometimes not tuberculosis. Consumption meant a number of diseases with a wide range of symptoms.
One of the victims of tuberculosis was Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, a doctor by profession. From the age of ten, he felt "pressure in the sternum." Since 1884 he had been bleeding from his right lung. Researchers believe that his trip to Sakhalin played a big role in Chekhov's death. The weakening of the body due to several thousand kilometers on horseback, in damp clothes and wet boots caused an exacerbation of the disease. His wife recalled that on the night of July 1-2, 1904, at a resort in Germany, Anton Chekhov himself ordered for the first time to send for a doctor:
“For the first time in my life, I myself asked to send for a doctor. Then he ordered to give champagne. Anton Pavlovich sat down and somehow significantly, loudly said to the doctor in German (he knew very little German): "Ich sterbe." Then he repeated for the student or for me in Russian: “I am dying.” Then he took a glass, turned his face towards me, smiled his amazing smile, said: “I haven’t drunk champagne for a long time ...”, calmly drank everything to the bottom, quietly lay down on my left side and soon fell silent forever.
Now they have learned to detect and treat tuberculosis at an early stage, but the disease continues to kill people. In 2006, 300,000 people were registered in the dispensary in Russia, and 35,000 people died from the disease.
In 2015, the death rate was 11 people per 100 thousand of the country's population, that is, about 16 thousand people died during the year from tuberculosis, not including the combination of HIV + tuberculosis. In just a year, 130 thousand infected were registered. The results compared to 2006 are encouraging. Every year, the death rate from tuberculosis is reduced by 10%.
Despite doctors trying to fight tuberculosis and reduce mortality and morbidity, an important problem remains: drug resistance in the Koch bacterium. Multidrug resistance is four times more common than ten years ago. That is, now every fifth patient simply does not respond to a number of the strongest drugs. Among them - 40% of those people who have already been treated.
The most acute problem of tuberculosis today is in China, India and Russia. The World Health Organization plans to defeat the epidemic by 2050. If in the case of plague, smallpox and influenza, we talked about certain epidemics and pandemics that broke out in different places, spread around the world and died away, then tuberculosis is a disease that has been constantly with us for tens and hundreds of years.
Tuberculosis is closely related to the social status of the patient. It is common in prisons and among the homeless. But do not think that this will protect you, a person working, for example, in an office, from illness. I already wrote above that Koch's wand is transmitted by airborne droplets: a homeless person sneezes on the subway - and a manager or programmer can end up in a hospital bed, risking being left without a lung. Much depends on immunity, on the strength of the organism that counteracts the infection. The body weakens poor and ill-conceived nutrition, lack of vitamins, constant stress.
Vaccination against tuberculosis is practiced in Russia in the first 3-7 days of a newborn's life with the help of BCG, a vaccine prepared from a strain of a weakened live bovine tuberculosis bacillus. It is grown in an artificial environment, and it has practically no virulence for humans. Revaccination is done after seven years.
In the case of tuberculosis, there is no mass hysteria in the media. At the same time, the disease is widespread throughout the planet and causes a huge number of deaths. Perhaps by 2050, the WHO will indeed be able to boast of ending an epidemic that has lasted for decades. At the same time, only vaccination and strong immunity can save you from Koch's wand.
If in the case of tuberculosis and influenza, the percentage of deaths and the number of infections decreases over the years, then the death rate from malaria, according to scientists, will double in the next twenty years due to a decrease in susceptibility to drugs. The second terrible disease we are talking about today is leprosy. In medieval France, lepers were condemned to death, a memorial service was served over the living, they threw earth at the cemetery with a couple of shovels, and after such a funeral they were taken to a special house - a leper colony.
Malaria
Malaria was first described around 2700 BC in the Chinese chronicle. But the first epidemic could have happened much earlier, from 8 to 15 thousand years ago, malaria could have caused a sharp decrease in the number of people on Earth.
The patient begins to ache in the joints, fever and chills, convulsions appear. A person becomes a bait for mosquitoes - he begins to smell delicious for them. This is necessary so that Plasmodium again gets to its beloved host, since a person for them is only a way to spread.
Children and people with HIV/AIDS are most at risk. The disease can be fatal for them.
Malaria seems like some distant African disease. Malaria mosquitoes themselves live in almost all climatic zones. But for the risk of infection, you need a large number of these insects and their rapid reproduction. Previously, malaria was called "swamp fever" precisely because it is common in places where there are no low temperatures, there are swamps and there is a lot of rainfall. The risk of infection is highest in the equatorial and subequatorial zones. In Russia, such mosquitoes are found throughout the European part of the country.
Malaria in Russia and the USSR was massive until the 1950s. In order to cope with this disease in the resort area, swamps were drained in Sochi, as well as reservoirs were oiled: they covered them with a layer of oil to exterminate mosquito larvae.
The largest number of cases in the history of the USSR was recorded in 1934-1935 - then 9 million people were infected. In 1962, malaria was defeated in the USSR. Isolated cases of infection were possible after that. During the war in Afghanistan in 1986-1990, an increase in the number of infected people was recorded in the USSR - 1314 cases.
Malaria covers 97 countries. Although almost half of the world's population - 3.2 billion people - were at risk of contracting malaria in 2015, the majority of cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa. It is there that 88% of cases and 90% of deaths from malaria occur.
In 2015, 214 million people contracted malaria and 438,000 of them died. Bill Gates and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne pledged $4.3 billion in January 2016 to fight the disease. This money is planned to be spent on the study of the disease and the search for drugs.
American Indians hundreds of years ago used cinchona bark as an antipyretic. The Spanish naturalist Bernabé Cobo brought it to Europe in 1632. After curing the wife of the viceroy of Peru from malaria, the miraculous properties of the medicine were known throughout the country, then the bark was transported to Spain and Italy, and it began to be used throughout Europe. It took almost two hundred years for quinine to be isolated directly from the bark, which was used in the form of a powder. It is still used today to treat the disease.
For decades (or even hundreds) people have been trying to create a vaccine against malaria. Unfortunately, vaccines still do not have a 100% guarantee against the disease. In July 2015, the Mosquirix vaccine was approved in Europe, which was tested on 15,000 children. The effectiveness of this vaccine is up to 40% when administered four times from 0 to 20 months. The vaccine will start in 2017.
In October 2015, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Youyou Tu for her discoveries in the fight against malaria. The scientist has extracted artemisinin, an extract of the herb Artemisia annua, the use of which significantly reduces mortality from malaria. Interestingly, she peeped the recipe from the alchemist Ge Hong in the book "Prescriptions for Emergency Care" of 340 AD. He advised squeezing the juice of wormwood leaves in plenty of cold water. Yuyu Tuu achieved stable results in the case of cold extraction.
In 2015, scientists at the University of California created genetically engineered mosquitoes that can quickly introduce a malaria-blocking gene into a population of normal mosquitoes. In addition, after the introduction of the gene, the eyes of mosquitoes begin to fluoresce, which increases the chance of their detection in the dark.
Leprosy
Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, is a chronic granulomatosis: it affects the human skin, peripheral nervous system, eyes, airways, testicles, hands and feet. The obsolete name for this disease is leprosy, it was mentioned in the Bible, was known in Ancient India and common in Medieval Europe. So widespread that at the beginning of the XIII century in Europe there were 19 thousand leper colonies, special houses for lepers.
In 503, a decree was issued in France obliging all patients with leprosy to live in leper colonies. A person with such a diagnosis was taken to church in a coffin, a memorial service was served, they were carried in the same coffin to the cemetery and lowered into the grave there. Then they dropped several shovels of earth, saying the words "You are not alive, you are dead for all of us." Then the person was taken to the leper colony. A person could go out for a walk, but only wearing a gray cloak with a hood and a bell around his neck to warn others about the approach of the "dead man".
The appearance of the word "infirmary" is associated with the disease. The knights of the Order of St. Lazarus accepted lepers. And they also took care of other sick people. The order was located on the island of Lazaretto in Italy.
Until the 16th century, there was an epidemic of leprosy in Europe, but the number of patients for an unknown reason decreased. Scientists in 2013 restored the DNA of a bacterium from the year 1300, removing it from the teeth of people who died at that time in leper colonies. It turned out that for seven hundred years the bacterium has not changed much. This suggests that humans have simply developed relative immunity to the disease.
In 1873, the Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen isolated the first leprosy bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae. In 2008, Mycobacterium lepromatosis was isolated, these bacteria are common in Mexico and the Caribbean. Until recently, it was believed that only people get sick with leprosy. But it turned out that armadillos and squirrels can transmit the disease to us. Moreover, squirrels themselves suffer from leprosy - they develop ulcers and growths on their heads and paws. Sick animals were discovered in the UK in 2016.
The incubation period of the disease can last up to 5 years, and symptoms in a person may not appear until 20 years after infection. Doctors distinguish three types of the course of the disease: lepromatous, tuberculoid and borderline.
With lepromatous, bumps or nodes up to a pea size appear on the skin, which can merge into large formations. Then ulcers open on these tubercles, filled with a large number of pathogenic bacteria. These ulcers eventually affect not only the skin, but reach the joints and bones of a person, after which the limbs can be amputated.
The tuberculoid type is characterized by damage only to the skin and peripheral nervous system. The perception of temperature, touch is disturbed.
An unidentifiable type of leprosy may change to any of the previous types. With it, damage to the nervous system, deformation of the feet and hands is possible.
Leprosy is transmitted through nose and mouth droplets through frequent contact with untreated people. In other words, the cries of "unclean, unclean" and the bell around the neck of the sick were too powerful a means of prevention. Today it is known that leprosy is not transmitted by touching a person and does not always lead to death. Previously, it was incurable and really led to inevitable disability. It is a matter of means and methods: bloodletting against leprosy is not the best method of treatment, as well as cleansing the stomach.
A person may not get sick at all even with too close contact with infected flesh. The Norwegian doctor Daniel Cornelius Danielsen experimented on himself: he injected the blood of a patient with leprosy, rubbed the pus of patients into scratches on his skin, introduced pieces of a leprous tubercle from a patient under his skin. But he didn't get sick. Now scientists have suggested that the disease also depends on the DNA of a particular person.
A breakthrough in treatment came in the 1940s with the development of the anti-leprosy drug dapsone. The drug has an antibacterial effect not only against Mycobacterium leprae, but also kills Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Illness is closely related to social status. In 2000, the World Health Organization named 91 countries with endemic foci of leprosy. In 70% of cases, leprosy occurs in India, Burma and Nepal. At risk are those people who have weakened immunity, who drink polluted water, eat little and live below the poverty line.
The number of patients decreased over time, although this figure does not always decrease on a yearly basis. In 1999, 640 thousand new cases of infection were recorded worldwide, in 2000 - 738 thousand, and in 2001 - 775 thousand. But in 2015, several times fewer people fell ill - 211 thousand.
In Russia in 2007 there were 600 patients with leprosy, of which only 35% were hospitalized, while the rest were on outpatient treatment and under observation. There were 16 leper colonies in the USSR, and four of them have survived in Russia. Patients can go to their relatives, but remain under observation. In the Tersk leper colony in the Stavropol Territory, some patients live for about 70 years. And they die not from the disease itself, but from old age.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 16 million patients with leprosy have been cured in 20 years. This disease has been defeated almost all over the world. Fortunately, the causative bacterium has not changed much, and it does not have drug resistance. The most important thing is to diagnose the disease as early as possible and start its treatment. People with weak immunity and poor living conditions are still at risk.
Infectious diseases have decimated mankind for many centuries. Epidemics destroyed entire nations and sometimes took even more lives than war, because doctors did not have antibiotics and vaccines in their arsenal to fight diseases. Today, medicine has stepped far forward and it seems that now a person has nothing to fear. However, most viruses can adapt to new conditions and again become a danger to our lives. Consider the worst epidemics in the history of mankind and hope that we do not have to face such terrible things.
1. Malaria
Malaria is considered one of the oldest diseases. According to some scientists, it was from this disease that the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun died. Malaria, caused by the bite of a mosquito, affects up to 500 million people every year. Malaria is especially common in African countries, this is due to the presence of polluted stagnant water and the reproduction of mosquitoes in it.
After the bite of an infected mosquito, the virus enters the human blood and begins to actively multiply inside the red blood cells, thereby causing their destruction.
2. Smallpox
To date, smallpox is absent in nature and is the first disease completely defeated by man.
The most terrible was the smallpox epidemic in America. The virus came to North and South America with European settlers. At the beginning of the 16th century, the smallpox virus caused a 10-20-fold decrease in the population of America. Smallpox claimed the lives of about 500 million people. Scientists suggest that the smallpox virus first appeared in ancient Egypt. Evidence of this was obtained after studying the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses V, who died in 1157 BC. e., on which traces of smallpox were found.
3. Plague
The most famous pandemic in history is the Black Death. An outbreak of the bubonic plague decimated the population of Europe from 1346 to 1353. The skin of those infected was covered with inflamed and swollen lymph nodes. The patients suffered from a terrible fever and coughed up blood, which meant that the disease had hit the lungs. Mortality from bubonic plague in the Middle Ages was about 90% of those infected. According to historians, the "Black Death" claimed the lives of 30 to 60% of the population of Europe.
4. Plague of Justinian
The Black Death was not the only major plague in human history. In the VI century, the so-called "Justinian Plague" raged, this epidemic is considered to be the first epidemic that was officially recorded in historical documents. The disease struck the Byzantine Empire around 541 AD. e. and is believed to have claimed the lives of 100 million people. Outbreaks of the "Justinian Plague" arose for another 225 years before disappearing completely. It is assumed that the disease came to Byzantium from China or India along the sea trade routes.
5 Spanish Flu
The Spanish flu epidemic, which caused the death of a third of the world's population, began in 1918. According to some reports, the disease killed between 20 and 40 million people in two years. It is assumed that the virus appeared in 1918 in China, from where it got to the United States, after which it spread by American soldiers throughout Europe. By the summer of 1918, influenza had spread throughout Europe. The governments of the countries categorically forbade the media to induce panic, so the epidemic became known only when the disease reached Spain, which remained neutral. Hence the name "Spanish flu". By winter, the disease swept almost the entire world, without affecting Australia and Madagascar.
Attempts to create a vaccine have not been successful. The Spanish flu epidemic lasted until 1919.
6. Plague of Antoninus
The Plague of Antoninus, also known as the Plague of Galen, raged through the Roman Empire from 165 to 180 AD. e. During the epidemic, about 5 million people died, including several emperors and members of their families. The disease was described by Claudius Galen, who mentioned that those who fell ill appeared on the body with a black rash, which suggests that the epidemic was caused by smallpox, and not plague.
7. Typhus
There have been several epidemics of typhus in history. The disease caused the greatest damage during the First World War, causing the death of more than 3 million people. The typhoid vaccine was invented during World War II.
8. Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis has been the cause of death for countless people throughout history.
The worst epidemic of tuberculosis, known as the Great White Plague, began in Europe in the 1600s and raged for more than 200 years. The disease has claimed the lives of about 1.5 million people.
In 1944, an antibiotic was developed to help effectively fight the disease. But, despite the development of medicine and treatment, about 8 million people worldwide fall ill with tuberculosis every year, a quarter of whom die.
9. Swine flu
The swine flu pandemic, which lasted from 2009 to 2010, killed 203,000 people worldwide.
This viral strain consisted of unique influenza virus genes that had not previously been identified in either animals or humans. The closest to the swine flu virus were the North American swine H1N1 virus and the Eurasian swine H1N1 virus.
Swine flu in 2009-2010 is considered one of the worst modern pandemics, and shows how vulnerable modern people are to certain flu strains.
10. Cholera
One of the first modern pandemics is the cholera outbreak from 1827 to 1832. Mortality reached 70% of all infected, which amounted to more than 100,000 people. The disease came to Europe through British colonists returning from India.
For a long time it seemed that cholera had completely disappeared from the face of the earth, but the outbreak of the disease began in 1961 in Indonesia and spread to most of the world, killing more than 4,000 people.
11. Plague of Athens
The Athenian plague began around 430 BC. e. during the Peloponnesian War. The plague killed 100,000 people in three years, it should be noted that at that time this number was about 25% of the total population of Ancient Athens.
Thucydides gave a detailed description of this plague to help others identify it later. According to him, the epidemic manifested itself in a rash on the body, high fever and diarrhea.
Some scientists believe that smallpox or typhus were the cause of the epidemic in ancient Athens.
12. Moscow plague
In 1770, an outbreak of bubonic plague occurred in Moscow, which killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people, that is, a third of the city's population. After the epidemic in Moscow, bubonic plague disappeared from Europe.
13. Ebola virus
The first cases of Ebola were detected in Guinea in February 2014, it was here that the epidemic began, which lasted until December 2015, and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, the USA, Spain and Mali. According to official figures, 28,616 people fell ill with Ebola and 11,310 people died.
The disease is highly contagious and can cause damage to the kidneys and liver. Ebola fever requires surgical treatment. A vaccine against the disease was discovered in the US, but because it is extremely expensive, it is not available worldwide.
14. HIV and AIDS
AIDS is the cause of death for more than 25 million people. Scientists believe the disease originated in Africa in the 1920s. HIV is a viral form of the disease and attacks the human immune system. Not everyone infected with HIV develops AIDS. Many people with the virus are able to lead normal lives thanks to the use of antiretroviral drugs.
In 2005, 3.1 million people died of AIDS. The average death rate per day was about 8,500.
The epidemic is near!
Epidemics - one of the most destructive natural hazards for humans. Numerous historical confirmations of the existence of monstrous pandemics that devastated vast territories and killed millions of people have survived to our times.
Some infectious diseases are peculiar only to humans, some are common to humans and animals: anthrax, glanders, foot and mouth disease, psittacosis, tularemia, etc.
Traces of some diseases are found in ancient burials. For example, traces of tuberculosis and leprosy were found on Egyptian mummies (2-3 thousand years BC). The symptoms of many diseases are described in the most ancient manuscripts of the civilizations of Egypt, India, Sumer, etc. Thus, the first mention of the plague is found in an ancient Egyptian manuscript and refers to the 4th century BC. BC. The causes of epidemics are limited. For example, the dependence of the spread of cholera on solar activity was found, of its six pandemics, four are associated with the peak of the active sun. Epidemics also occur during natural disasters that cause the death of a large number of people, in countries affected by famine, during major droughts that spread over large areas, and even in the most developed, modern states.
Frank Moore "Red Ribbon"
Symbol of the fight against AIDS
The Great History of Great Epidemics
The history of mankind and the history of epidemics are inseparable. Several epidemics are constantly raging in the world - AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, influenza, etc. It is impossible to hide from epidemics. In addition, epidemics have consequences that affect not only the health of mankind, but also penetrate into many areas of life, having a tremendous impact on them.
smallpox epidemic, for example, which broke out in the elite parts of the Persian army and hit even King Xerxes in 480 BC, allowed Greece to maintain its independence and, accordingly, create a great culture.
First epidemic, known as the "Justinian plague", arose in the middle of the 6th century in Ethiopia or Egypt, subsequently swept many countries. About 100 million people died in 50 years. Some regions of Europe - for example, Italy - were almost depopulated, which had a positive effect on the ecological situation in Italy, because during the years of the epidemic, forests that had previously been ruthlessly cut down were restored.
In the middle of the 14th century, the world was struck by an epidemic of the "Black Death" - the bubonic plague, which destroyed about a third of the population of Asia and a quarter or half (various historians give different estimates) of the population of Europe, after the end of the epidemic, the development of European civilization took a slightly different path: due to the fact that there were fewer hands, wage workers achieved higher wages, the role of cities increased and the development of the bourgeoisie began. In addition, significant progress has been made in the fields of hygiene and medicine. All this, in turn, became one of the reasons for the beginning of the era of great geographical discoveries - European merchants and sailors sought to get spices, which were then considered effective medicines that could protect people from infectious diseases.
Despite the fact that historians find positive aspects of the impact of epidemics on humanity, one should not forget that the most severe consequence of any, even the most insignificant epidemic, is damage to human health and a threat to the most precious thing that existed and exists on earth, human life.
There are thousands of diseases
but health is only one
Chronicles from the history of epidemics
1200 BC. Plague epidemic. The Philistines - an ancient people who inhabited the coastal part of Palestine with a war trophy brought the plague to the city of Ascalon.
767 BC. Plague epidemic. The beginning of a long epidemic of the Justinian plague, which will later claim 40 million lives.
480 BC. Smallpox epidemic. The epidemic that broke out in the elite units of the Persian army struck even King Xerxes.
463 BC. Epidemic pestilence in Rome. A disaster began - a pestilence that struck both people and animals.
430 BC. "The Plague of Thucydides". It broke out in Athens, named after the historian Thucydides, who left to posterity a description of a terrible disease. The cause of the epidemic became known only in 2006, after the study of the remains of people found by archaeologists in a mass grave under the Acropolis of Athens. It turned out that the “Plague of Thucydides” is an epidemic of typhus that killed more than one-third of the population of Athens within a year.
165 BC. Ancient Rome. Seriously knocked down the "Antonin's plague" - "The first to appear were fetid breath and erysipelas, dirty-bluish redness of the tongue and oral cavity. The disease was accompanied by a black rash on the skin "according to the descriptions of the great ancient Roman physician Galen, these are the clinical signs of the pestilence of Antoninus, which broke out in Syria in 165. However, scientists still argue whether it was a plague or some other unknown disease. 5 million people died.
250-265 Epidemic in Rome. Weakened by endless wars, Rome became easy prey for the plague.
452 Epidemic in Rome.
446 Epidemic in Britain. In 446, there were two disasters, most likely related. One of them was an epidemic of plague, the second was the uprising of a large Anglo-Saxon army.
541 "Justinian Plague". The epidemic raged in the Eastern Roman Empire for almost three decades, killing more than 20 million people - almost half of the entire population of the empire. "There was no salvation for a man from the plague, no matter where he lived - on an island, or in a cave, or on a mountaintop." Many houses were empty, and it happened that many of the dead, for lack of relatives or servants, lay unburnt for several days. Most of the people that could be found on the street were those who carried the corpses. The plague of Justinian is the ancestor of the black death, or the so-called second plague pandemic. It was from the second to the last (eleventh) pandemic - 558-654 years that the cyclical nature of the epidemic arose: 8-12 years.
558 bubonic epidemic in Europe. Disease of saints and kings.
736 First in Japan only a thousand years later, the discovery of Edward Jenner, which immortalized his name, put an end to the terrible disease.
746 Epidemic in Constantinople. Thousands of people died every day.
1090 "Kyiv Sea"“A terrible pestilence devastated Kyiv - within a few winter months 7 thousand coffins were sold”, the plague was brought by merchants from the East, killed over 10 thousand people in two weeks, the deserted capital presented a terrible sight.
1096-1270 Epidemic plague in Egypt.“The plague reached its highest point during the sowing season. Some people plowed the land, and others sowed the grain, and those who sowed did not live to see the harvest. The villages were empty: Dead bodies floated down the Nile as densely as the tubers of plants that cover the surface of this river at a certain time. The dead did not have time to burn and relatives, trembling with horror, threw them over the city walls. Egypt lost more than a million people in this epidemic” I.F. Mishud "History of the Crusades"
1172 Epidemic in Ireland. More than once the epidemic will visit this country and take away her brave sons.
1235 Epidemic plague in France“A great famine reigned in France, especially in Aquitaine, so that people, like animals, ate the grass of the field. And there was a strong epidemic: the "sacred fire" devoured the poor in such a large number that the church of Saint-Maxin was full of the sick. Vincent from Beauvais.
1348-49 Bubonic plague. A deadly disease entered England in 1348, devastating France beforehand. As a result, about 50 thousand people died in London alone. It hit county after county, leaving coal-black corpses and empty cities. Some areas are completely dead. The plague began to be called the "scourge of God", considering it a punishment for sins. Carts traveled around the cities around the clock, collecting corpses and taking them to the burial place.
1348 plague in Ireland. The Black Death kills 14,000 people. The English in Ireland complain that the plague is killing more of them than of the Irish! "Irish fleas that carry the plague prefer to bite the English?"
1340 Plague in Italy. In Italy in those years, not only the plague struck. As early as 1340, signs of a general political and economic crisis began to appear there. The crash was unstoppable. One after another, the largest banks failed, in addition to the great flood of 1346 in Florence, a strong hail, a drought completed the pestilence in 1348, when more than half of the city's population died out.
1346-1353 Black Death. A devastating plague pandemic, called the Black Death by contemporaries, raged for three centuries. Attempts to understand the causes of the disaster usually come down either to finding evidence that “it was not a plague”, or to the fact of the use of biological weapons (During the siege of the Genoese colony of Kafu in the Crimea, the soldiers began to throw the corpses of the dead into the city with the help of catapults, which led to As a result, almost 15 million people died from it during the year alone.
1388 Plague in Russia In 1388, Smolensk was engulfed by a plague epidemic. Only 10 people survived, and for some time the entrance to the city was closed. The Lithuanian feudal lords took advantage of this and nominated their supporter Yuri Svyatoslavich for the reign of Smolensk.
1485 "English sweat or English sweating fever" An infectious disease of unknown origin with a very high mortality rate that visited Europe (primarily Tudor England) several times between 1485 and 1551. "English sweat" was most likely of non-English origin and came to England with the Tudor dynasty. In August 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond landed in Wales, defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, entered London and became King Henry VII. His army, which consisted mainly of French and British mercenaries, was followed by illness. In the two weeks between Henry's landing on August 7th and the Battle of Bosworth on August 22nd, it had already made itself felt. In London, several thousand people died from it in a month (September-October). Then the epidemic subsided. The people perceived it as a bad omen for Henry VII: "he is destined to rule in agony, a sign of this was a sweating disease at the beginning of his reign"
1495 the first epidemic of syphilis. There is a widespread hypothesis that syphilis was brought to Europe by sailors from the ships of Columbus from the New World (America), who, in turn, became infected from the natives of the island of Haiti. Many of them then joined the multinational army of Charles VIII, who invaded Italy in 1495. As a result, in the same year there was an outbreak of syphilis among his soldiers. In 1496, a syphilis epidemic spreads to France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and then to Austria, Hungary, Poland, which led to the death of more than 5 million people. In 1500, the syphilis epidemic spreads throughout Europe and beyond its borders, cases of the disease are recorded in North Africa, Turkey, and the disease also spreads in Southeast Asia, China and India. 1512 A major outbreak of syphilis occurs in Kyoto. Syphilis was the leading cause of death in Europe during the Renaissance
1505-1530 Epidemic typhus in Italy.
Descriptions of this epidemic are associated with the name of the Italian doctor Fracastor, who observed an epidemic of typhus in the period from 1505 to 1530, which began in the French troops besieging Naples, the incidence in the troops reached 50% and even more, accompanied by high mortality.
1507 Epidemic smallpox in western India. There was a time when smallpox decimated masses of people and left the survivors blind and disfigured. The description of the disease is already contained in ancient Chinese and sacred Indian texts. Scientists suggest that the "homeland" of smallpox is Ancient China and Ancient India.
1518 Epidemic "Dance of St. Vitus". In July 1518, in Strasbourg, France, a woman named Frau Troffea went out into the street and began to perform dance steps, which continued for several days. By the end of the first week, 34 local residents had joined. Then the crowd of dancers grew to 400 participants, the TV channel reports on a reliably recorded historical episode, which was called the "dancing plague" or the "epidemic of 1518". Experts believe that the underlying reason for such mass phenomena was mold spores that had fallen with bread, which formed in stacks of wet rye.
1544 Epidemictyphusin Hungary. Thanks to the war and difficult socio-economic conditions, typhus has built a nest for itself.
1521 Smallpox epidemic in America. The consequences of this disease are devastating - entire tribes have become extinct.
1560 Smallpox epidemic in Brazil. Pathogens and vectors of diseases, imported from Europe or Africa, spread very quickly. As soon as the Europeans reached the New World, smallpox breaks out in San Domingo in 1493, in Mexico City in 1519, even before Cortes broke into it, and from the 30s. 16th century in Peru, ahead of the arrival of Spanish soldiers. In Brazil, smallpox peaks in 1560.
1625 Plague in the UK 35,000 people died.
1656 Plague in Italy. 60,000 people died.
1665 "Plague of London" a massive outbreak in England during which an estimated 100,000 people died, 20% of London's population.
1672 Plague in Italy. The Black Plague struck Naples, burying an estimated four hundred thousand people.
1720 Plague in France. The ship Chateau arrived in the harbor of Marseilles on May 25, 1720 from Syria, calling at Seyid, Tripoli and Cyprus. Upon subsequent investigation, it was found that although the plague originated in these ports, the Château left them even before it was discovered there. Troubles began to haunt the Chateau with Livorno when 6 people from the crew died. But then nothing foreshadowed the fact that he would be appointed "the culprit of the plague."
1721 Epidemic smallpox in Massachusetts. It was in 1721 that a priest named Cotton Mather tried to introduce a crude form of smallpox vaccination, the application of pus from the rashes of the sick to the scratches of healthy people. The experiment was heavily criticized.
1760 Plague in Syria. Famine and death swept the country, the plague triumphed, collecting a heavy tribute from life.
1771 "Plague riot" in Moscow. The most severe plague epidemic in Russia, which caused one of the largest uprisings of the 18th century, The reason for the uprising was the attempt of the Moscow Archbishop Ambrose, in the conditions of an epidemic that claimed up to a thousand people a day, to prevent worshipers and pilgrims from gathering at the miraculous Icon of the Bogolyubskaya Mother of God at the Barbarian Gate China- cities. The archbishop ordered the box for offerings to the Bogolyubskaya icon to be sealed, and the icon itself to be removed in order to avoid crowds and further spread of the epidemic.
In response to this, on alarm, a crowd of rebels destroyed the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin. The next day, the crowd took the Donskoy Monastery by storm, killed Archbishop Ambrose, who was hiding in it, and began to smash the quarantine outposts and the houses of the nobility. Troops under the command of G.G. Orlov were sent to suppress the uprising. After three days of fighting, the rebellion was crushed.
1792 Plague in Egypt. 800,000 people have been killed by the pandemic.
1793 Epidemicyellow feverUSA in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an outbreak of yellow fever began. On this day, the death toll reached 100 people. In total, the epidemic claimed the lives of 5,000 people.
1799 Plague in Africa. It still occurs regularly in some parts of Africa.
1812 Epidemic typhus in Russia. During Napoleon's campaign in Russia in 1812, the French army lost 1/3 of its soldiers from typhus, and Kutuzov's army lost half of its troops.
1826-1837 First of seven cholera pandemics. Her journey began from India, then she penetrated China, and a year later - to Iran, Turkey, Arabia, Transcaucasia, destroying more than half of the population of some cities.
1831 Epidemic cholera in the UK compared to the great killers of the past, her victims were not so great ..
1823-1865 Epidemic cholera in Russia. 5 times cholera entered Russia from the south.
1855 Epidemic plague "Third pandemic" a widespread epidemic that originated in Yunnan province. Bubonic and pneumonic plague has spread to all inhabited continents in a few decades. In China and India alone, the total death toll was more than 12 million.
1889-1892 Epidemic influenza According to serological archeology, the pandemic of 1889-1892. was caused by the H2N2 serotype virus.
1896-1907 Epidemic bubonic plague in India about 3 million dead.
1903 Yellow fever epidemic in Panama. This disease was especially prevalent among the builders of the Panama Canal.
1910-1913 Epidemic plague in China and India, about 1 million dead.
1916 polio epidemic. In the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, polio epidemics raged in Europe and the United States. In 1916 alone, 27,000 people were infected with polio in the United States. And in 1921, at the age of 39, the future president of this country, Franklin Roosevelt, fell ill with polio. He was unable to get out of his wheelchair for the rest of his life.
1917-1921 Epidemic typhus, in post-revolutionary Russia, about 3 million people died during this period.
1918 Spanish flu epidemic was most likely the most massive in the history of mankind. In 1918-1919 (18 months), approximately 50-100 million people or 2.7-5.3% of the world's population died from the Spanish flu worldwide. About 550 million people, or 29.5% of the world's population, were infected. The epidemic began in the last months of the First World War and quickly overshadowed this largest bloodshed in terms of casualties. In May 1918, 8 million people, or 39% of its population, were infected in Spain (King Alfonso XIII also had a Spanish flu). Many victims of influenza were young and healthy people in the 20-40 age group (typically only children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with certain medical conditions are at high risk). Symptoms of the disease: blue complexion, cyanosis, pneumonia, bloody cough. In the later stages of the disease, the virus caused intrapulmonary bleeding, as a result of which the patient choked on his own blood. But for the most part, the disease passed without any symptoms. Some infected people died the next day after infection.
1921-1923 plague epidemic in India, about 1 million dead.
1926-1930 Smallpox epidemic in India several hundred thousand dead.
1950 polio epidemic. The world was again struck by this terrible disease. It was in the 50s of the twentieth century, when the vaccine was invented (researchers from the USA D. Salk, A. Sebin). In the USSR, the first mass immunization was carried out in Estonia, where the incidence of poliomyelitis was very high. The vaccine has since been introduced into the National Vaccination Schedule.
1957 Asian flu epidemic Epidemic influenza strain H2N2), killed about 2 million people.
1968 Hong Kong flu epidemic. The most frequently affected by the virus were older people over 65 years of age. In the United States, the death toll from this pandemic was 33,800.
1974 Smallpox epidemic in India. The goddess Mariatale, in whose honor festivities were held, accompanied by self-torture, healed of smallpox this time was not supportive.
1976. Ebola. In Sudan, 284 people fell ill, of which 151 died. In Zaire, 318 (280 died). The virus was isolated from the Ebola River region in Zaire. This gave the virus its name.
1976-1978 Russian flu epidemic. The pandemic began in the USSR. In September 1976-April 1977, the flu was caused by two types of virus - A / H3N2 and B, in the same months of 1977-1978 already three - A / H1N1, A / H3N2 and B. They were affected by the "Russian flu", mainly , children and young people up to 25 years. The course of the pandemic was relatively mild with few complications.
1981 to 2006 AIDS epidemic, 25 million people died. Thus, the HIV pandemic is one of the most devastating epidemics in human history. In 2006 alone, HIV infection caused about 2.9 million deaths. By the beginning of 2007, about 40 million people worldwide (0.66% of the world's population) were HIV carriers. Two-thirds of the total number of people living with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.
2003 Epidemic". Avian influenza, the classical plague of birds, is an acute infectious viral disease characterized by damage to the digestive and respiratory organs, high mortality, which makes it possible to classify it as a particularly dangerous disease that can cause great economic damage. Different strains of avian influenza virus can cause 10 to 100% death among those who become ill
2009 Pandemic "swine" influenza A / H1N1 - "Mexican", "Mexican Flu", "Mexican Swine Flu", "North American Flu"; in which many people were infected in Mexico City, other regions of Mexico in parts of the United States, in Russia.
Artificial epidemics
Thirteen countries in the world allegedly possess biological weapons, but only three states - Russia, Iraq (although no evidence of this has yet been found) and Iran - could allegedly have significant stockpiles of them. There is a high possibility that Israel, North Korea and China also have small bioweapon arsenals. Syria, Libya, India, Pakistan, Egypt and Sudan are possibly conducting research in this direction. It is well known that over the past ten years, biological weapons programs have been phased out in South Africa and Taiwan.
Back in 1969, the United States pledged never to use biological weapons, although research with deadly microorganisms and poisons is still being carried out. Biological weapons are one of the most terrible military inventions. However, there have been very few attempts to use it in practice, because the danger from its use is too great. An artificial epidemic can affect not only "strangers", but also "our own".
History of biological weapons
III century BC: The Carthaginian commander Hannibal placed poisonous snakes in clay pots and fired at cities and fortresses occupied by the enemy.
1346: The first use of biological weapons. Mongolian troops besiege the city of Kafa (now Feodosia in the Crimea). During the siege, a plague broke out in the Mongol camp. The Mongols were forced to stop the siege, but first they began to throw the corpses of those who died from the plague behind the fortress walls and the epidemic spread inside the city. It is believed that the plague epidemic that hit Europe was, in part, caused by the use of biological weapons.
1518: The Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes infected the Aztecs (a tribe of Indians who formed a powerful state on the territory of modern Mexico) with smallpox. The local population, which had no immunity to this disease, was reduced by about half.
1710: During the Russo-Swedish War, Russian troops used the bodies of those who died from the plague in order to cause an epidemic in the enemy camp.
1767: Sir Geoffrey Amherst, a British general, presented the Indians who helped the British enemies - the French, with blankets that had previously been used to cover smallpox patients. The epidemic that broke out among the Indians allowed Amherst to win the war.
1915: During the First World War, France and Germany infected horses and cows with anthrax and drove them to the side of the enemy.
1930-1940s: Japan spends several hundred residents of the Chinese city of Chushen becoming victims of the bubonic plague, presumably spread by the Japanese.
1942: British troops are conducting an anthrax combat experiment on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. Sheep became victims of anthrax. The island was so contaminated that after 15 years it had to be completely burned out with napalm.
1979: Outbreak of anthrax near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). 64 people died. It is assumed that the cause was a leak from an enterprise that produced biological weapons.
1980-1988: Iraq and Iran used biological weapons against each other.
1990 - 1993: The terrorist organization "Aum Shinrikyo" Aum Shinrikyo is trying to infect the population of Tokyo with anthrax.
year 2001: Letters containing anthrax spores are sent around the United States. Several people died. The terrorist(s) have not yet been found.
To make it clearer, from the Greek word "epidemic" is translated as "general disease among the people." An epidemic cannot be considered an outbreak of a disease that has spread throughout the country, and not in individual regions. Fortunately, advances in medicine have reduced the risk of epidemics and pandemics to a minimum. Among the current epidemics, the influenza and SARS epidemics are most common, you can rarely hear about the plague epidemic, as doctors are actively implementing measures to protect against diseases among the population.
The worst epidemics in history
Epidemics in the history of mankind have been encountered since ancient times. Diseases mowed down entire cities, on the streets lay the corpses of people who died from diseases. Medicine had such a low level of development that it could not withstand outbreaks of plague, malaria or cholera, and create the required level of security. Let's get acquainted with the most terrible epidemics that are written in black pages in the history of mankind.
In 541-542 BC. bubonic plague broke out in the Byzantine Empire. In terms of its consequences, it was later compared with the wave of the Black Death in Europe, when every third European died from the disease. At the same time, Byzantium became part of a general pandemic that swept the whole world - North Africa and America, Asia and Europe were affected. For 200 years, the disease has raged in these areas of the globe. Calculate at least the approximate number of dead historians can not yet.
The segment in world history from 1665 to 1666 will be remembered by the British as the Great Plague of London. About 100 thousand people died - this is one fifth of the population of the entire city. The bubonic plague, as it was later established, broke out due to unsanitary conditions. In terms of its consequences, the epidemic can be compared with the Black Death, which broke out from 1347 to 1353 - then more than 25 million people died.
The Black Death, also called the Great or Bubonic Plague, is the worst plague in world history. The pandemic began in the mid-1320s in Asia and spread throughout the world within a few years, largely facilitated by merchants and soldiers. In Europe, the Black Death began its procession, hitting the Crimea in 1340. Only among Europeans, about 30 million people died from the Black Death. With each generation, the plague returned until the early eighteenth century.
Another tragic story, this time in the Russian chronicle, happened at the end of 1770 in Moscow, when the plague broke out. It all started with a few cases of illness, and ended tragically. The Russian authorities failed to cope with a dangerous disease - instead of competent measures, the houses of those families where the patient was located were burned, public baths were closed to avoid the spread of lice.
On September 17, 1771, the Plague Riot broke out - only after it did the authorities undertake to ensure the fight against the plague.
Plague - hello from the Middle Ages
Epidemics of the Middle Ages are associated with mass plague diseases. The danger was that the plague chronicle of the epidemic of which is described above did not respond to medical treatment - the practical level of doctors was at a low level. In 1998, it was established that the plague bacillus was the cause of the Black Death, according to data for 2013, 2014, there were no dangerous outbreaks of the disease. Among the causes of the terrible epidemic, which claimed the lives of a total of 60 million people, are:
- environmental factor - a sharp change from cold to warm climate,
- raging civil wars and other military conflicts,
- poverty and vagrancy of the population,
- low level or complete lack of personal hygiene, violation of sanitary safety measures,
- terrible sanitary condition of cities,
- a huge number of rats that spread the disease.
Characteristics of the plague epidemic
At a minimum, the main danger of any epidemic is the rapid spread of the disease and a large number of deaths. The plague proceeds exclusively in a severe form; lice, rats, fleas and even cats can be its distributors. The most common plague is bubonic and pneumonic. Now the development of medicine makes it possible to prevent death from the plague in 95% of cases, whereas in the past almost every case ended in death. Not so long ago, by historical standards, the plague raged in the Far East - 100 thousand people became victims of the epidemic.
According to 2015 data, the number of plague cases annually is about 2.5 thousand people. Unfortunately, there is no trend towards disappearance or decrease in the level of the disease. The plague has not appeared in Russia since 1979. Modern plague outbreaks were registered in 2013 and 2014 in Madagascar - 79 people died.
Influenza - help and symptoms
Until now, the influenza epidemic takes the lives of 250 to 500 thousand people every year, according to data for 2013-2014. Mostly, the influenza virus is fatal to the elderly, over 65 years of age. In many countries, including Russia, preventive measures are being taken to prevent an influenza epidemic. At the same time, the virus is relatively young - it was isolated in a separate group in the 30s of the twentieth century, before that the Spanish flu raged in Europe.
In history, the Spanish flu is considered the worst epidemic. It happened in 1918-1919, a wave of diseases swept around the world, as a result, 550 million people were infected, of which 100 million people died. The flu epidemic owes its origin to the First World War, and at the same time managed to bypass the war in terms of the number of victims. The Spaniard was characterized for the patient by a blue complexion, a bloody cough.
Only in the first weeks of distribution, the Spaniard killed 25 million people.
The emergence of the measles epidemic
A measles epidemic is an outbreak of a disease that is the leading cause of death in infants. Measles is also difficult for adults to tolerate. Only in 2011, 158 thousand people became victims of this insidious disease. Most of them are children under the age of 5. Measles is dangerous because it is spread by airborne droplets, while the sick person himself also becomes contagious, and the people around him cannot think about safety.
Measles in adults can appear if a person in childhood was not vaccinated or did not have it. Then the body develops immunity against measles. Adults with measles feel hard - the disease is accompanied by pneumonia and other complications. It is especially dangerous to catch measles for people with immunodeficiency - death for such patients is almost inevitable. Measles epidemics broke out around the world in 2013 and 2014.
Incredible Facts
Not a very large number of words in any language can cause as much horror, suffering and death as the word "plague". Indeed, infectious diseases have caused enormous damage to people for centuries. They destroyed entire nations, took as many lives as sometimes even wars did not take away, and also played a decisive role in the course of history.
Ancient people were no strangers to disease. They encountered microbes that caused disease in drinking water, food, and the environment. Sometimes an outbreak of a disease could wipe out a small group of people, but this continued until people began to coalesce in populations, thereby allowing an infectious disease to become an epidemic. An epidemic occurs when a disease affects a disproportionate number of people within a given population, such as a city or geographic region. If the disease affects even more people, then these outbreaks develop into a pandemic.
Humans have also exposed themselves to deadly new diseases as a result of the domestication of animals that carry no less dangerous bacteria. By coming into regular close contact with a previously wild animal, early farmers gave these microbes a chance to adapt to the human body.
In the process of human exploration of more and more new lands, he came into close contact with microbes that he could never encounter. By storing food, people attracted rats and mice into their homes, which brought even more germs. Human expansion led to the construction of wells and canals, thanks to which such a phenomenon as stagnant water appeared, which was actively chosen by mosquitoes and mosquitoes that carry various diseases. As technology progressed, a particular type of microbe could easily be transported many miles from its original home.
Epidemic 10: Smallpox
Before the influx of European explorers, conquerors and colonists to the New World in the early 1500s, the American continent was home to 100 million natives. In subsequent centuries, epidemic diseases reduced their number to 5-10 million. While these people, like the Incas and Aztecs, were building cities, they didn't live long enough to catch as many diseases as the Europeans "owned", nor did they domesticate as many animals. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they brought with them many diseases for which the native peoples had no immunity or protection.
Chief among these diseases was smallpox, caused by the variola virus. These microbes began attacking humans thousands of years ago, with the most common form of the disease boasting a 30 percent mortality rate. Smallpox symptoms include high fever, body aches, and a rash that appears as small, fluid-filled sores. The disease is predominantly spread through direct contact with the skin of an infected person or through bodily fluids, but can also be transmitted by airborne droplets in a confined space.
Despite the development of a vaccine in 1796, the smallpox epidemic continued to spread. Even relatively recently, in 1967, the virus killed more than two million people, and millions of people around the world were severely affected by the disease. In the same year, the World Health Organization launched an active effort to eradicate the virus through mass vaccination. As a result, the last case of smallpox was recorded in 1977. Now, effectively excluded from the natural world, the disease exists only in laboratories.
Epidemic 9: 1918 Flu
It was 1918. The world watched as the First World War drew to a close. By the end of the year, the death toll is estimated to reach 37 million worldwide. Then a new disease appeared. Some call it the Spanish Flu, others the Great Flu or the 1918 Flu. Whatever it is called, but this disease killed 20 million lives within a few months. A year later, the flu will moderate its ardor, but, nevertheless, irreparable damage has been done. According to various estimates, the number of victims was 50-100 million people. Many consider this flu to be the worst epidemic and pandemic ever recorded in history.
In fact, the 1918 flu was not a typical virus that we deal with every year. It was a new strain of influenza virus, the AH1N1 bird flu virus. Scientists suspect the disease passed from bird to person in the American west shortly before the outbreak. Later, as the flu killed more than 8 million people in Spain, the disease was named the Spanish flu. All over the world, people's immune systems were not prepared for the onslaught of the new virus, just as the Aztecs were not prepared for the "arrival" of smallpox in the 1500s. Mass transportation of soldiers and food by the end of the First World War allowed the virus to quickly "organize" a pandemic and reach other countries and continents.
The 1918 flu was accompanied by the symptoms of regular flu, including fever, nausea, pain, and diarrhea. In addition, patients often developed black spots on their cheeks. Since their lungs were filled with fluid, they were at risk of dying from lack of oxygen, and many of them died from this.
The epidemic subsided within a year as the virus mutated into other, safer forms. Most people today have developed some immunity to this virus family, inherited from those who survived the pandemic.
Epidemic 8: Black Death
The Black Death is considered the first plague, which killed half the population of Europe in 1348 and also wiped out parts of China and India. This disease has destroyed many cities, constantly changing the structure of classes, and has affected global politics, commerce and society.
The Black Death was for a long time thought to be a plague that traveled in bubonic form on rat fleas. Recent studies have challenged this claim. Some scientists are now arguing that the Black Death may have been a hemorrhagic virus similar to Ebola. This form of the disease leads to huge blood loss. Experts continue to examine the remains of plague victims in the hope of finding genetic evidence to substantiate their theories.
Yet, if it was a plague, then the Black Death is still with us. Caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the disease can still live in the poorest regions, which are densely populated by rats. Modern medicine makes it easy to cure the disease in the early stages, so the threat of death is much lower. Symptoms include swollen lymph nodes, fever, cough, bloody sputum, and difficulty breathing.
Epidemic 7: Malaria
Malaria is far from new to the world of epidemics. Its impact on human health began over 4,000 years ago when Greek writers noted its effects. Mosquito-borne disease is also mentioned in ancient Indian and Chinese medical texts. Even then, doctors managed to make a vital connection between the disease and stagnant water, in which mosquitoes and mosquitoes breed.
Malaria is caused by four species of the Plasmodium microbe, which is "common" to two species: mosquitoes and humans. When an infected mosquito decides to feast on human blood, and succeeds, it transfers the microbe into the human body. Once the virus is in the blood, it begins to multiply inside the red blood cells, thereby destroying them. Symptoms of the disease range from mild to fatal, and typically include fever, chills, sweating, headaches, and muscle pain.
Concrete figures for the impact of the first malaria outbreaks are hard to come by. However, it is possible to trace the impact of malaria on a person by studying the regions suffering from the disease. In 1906, the United States employed 26,000 people to build the Panama Canal, some time later more than 21,000 of them were hospitalized with a diagnosis of malaria.
In the past, during wartime, many troops often suffered severe losses as a result of malaria outbreaks. According to some reports, during the American Civil War, more than 1,316,000 people suffered from this disease, and more than 10,000 of them died. During the Second World War, malaria "disabled" the British, French and German military for three years. Nearly 60,000 American soldiers died from this disease in Africa and the South Pacific during World War II.
By the end of World War II, the US tried to stop the malaria epidemic. The country initially made huge strides in this area through the use of currently banned insecticides, followed by preventive measures to keep the mosquito population low. After the US Center for Disease Control announced that malaria had been eradicated in the country, the World Health Organization actively began to fight the disease around the world. The results were mixed, however, the cost of the project, the war, the emergence of a drug-resistant new species of malaria and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes eventually led to the abandonment of the project.
Today, malaria continues to cause problems in most countries of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, as they have been excluded from the WHO eradication campaign. Every year, up to 283 million cases of malaria are recorded, more than 500,000 people die.
However, it is important to add that in comparison with the beginning of the 21st century, the number of sick and dead today has significantly decreased.
Epidemic 6: Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis has "ravaged" the human population throughout history. Ancient texts detail how the victims of the disease withered, and DNA testing revealed the presence of tuberculosis even in Egyptian mummies. Caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium, it is spread from person to person through the air. The bacterium usually infects the lungs, resulting in chest pain, weakness, weight loss, fever, excessive sweating, and coughing up blood. In some cases, the bacterium also affects the brain, kidneys, or spine.
Beginning in the 1600s, the European tuberculosis epidemic known as the Great White Plague raged for more than 200 years, with one in seven infected people dying. Tuberculosis was a constant problem in colonial America. Even in the late 19th century, 10 percent of all deaths in the US were due to tuberculosis.
In 1944, doctors developed the antibiotic streptomycin, which helped fight the disease. In the following years, even more significant breakthroughs were made in this area, and as a result, after 5,000 years of suffering, humanity finally managed to cure what the ancient Greeks called "a wasting disease."
However, despite modern treatments, TB continues to affect 8 million people each year, with 2 million deaths. The disease returned in a big way in the 1990s, mainly "thanks" to global poverty and the emergence of new antibiotic-resistant strains of tuberculosis. In addition, patients with HIV/AIDS have weakened immune systems, making them more susceptible to TB infection.
Epidemic 5: Cholera
The people of India have lived in the danger of cholera since ancient times, but this danger did not manifest itself until the 19th century, when the rest of the world encountered the disease. During this time period, traders unintentionally exported the deadly virus to cities in China, Japan, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. There have been six cholera pandemics that have killed millions of people.
Cholera is caused by an Escherichia coli called Vibrio cholerae. The disease itself is usually very mild. Five percent of those who catch the disease experience severe vomiting, diarrhea and cramps, with these symptoms leading to rapid dehydration. As a rule, most people easily cope with cholera, but only when the body is not dehydrated. People can contract cholera through close physical contact, but cholera is mainly spread through contaminated water and food. During the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, cholera spread to the major cities of Europe. Doctors insisted on "clean" living conditions and on the creation of improved sewage systems, believing that the epidemic was caused by "bad air". However, this actually helped, as cases of cholera infection were significantly reduced after the purified water supply system was adjusted.
For decades, cholera seemed to be a thing of the past. However, a new strain of cholera emerged in 1961 in Indonesia and eventually spread to much of the world. In 1991, about 300,000 suffered from this disease, and more than 4,000 died.
Epidemic 4: AIDS
The emergence of AIDS in the 1980s led to a global pandemic, as more than 25 million people have died since 1981. According to the latest statistics, there are currently 33.2 million HIV-infected people on the planet. AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The virus spreads through contact with blood, semen and other biological material, which causes irreparable damage to the human immune system. A damaged immune system gives access to infections called opportunistic infections that do not cause any problems to the average person. HIV becomes AIDS if the immune system is severely damaged enough.
Scientists believe that the virus passed from apes to humans in the mid-20th century. In the 1970s, Africa's population grew significantly, and war, poverty and unemployment hit many cities. Through prostitution and intravenous drug use, HIV has become very easy to spread through unprotected sex and the reuse of contaminated needles. Since then, AIDS has traveled south of the Sahara, orphaning millions of children and depleting the workforce in many of the world's poorest countries.
There is currently no cure for AIDS, however, there are some drugs that can prevent HIV from turning into AIDS, and additional drugs can also help fight opportunistic infections.
Epidemic 3: Yellow Fever
When the Europeans began to "import" African slaves to America, they also brought with them, in addition to a number of new diseases, yellow fever. This disease destroyed entire cities.
When the French Emperor Napoleon sent an army of 33,000 French soldiers to North America, yellow fever killed 29,000 of them. Napoleon was so shocked by the number of victims that he decided that this territory was not worth such losses and risks. France sold the land to the United States in 1803, an event that went down in history as the Louisiana Purchase.
Yellow fever, like malaria, is transmitted from person to person by mosquito bites. Typical symptoms include fever, chills, headache, muscle pain, and vomiting. The severity of symptoms ranges from mild to fatal, and severe infection can lead to bleeding, shock, and severe kidney and liver failure. Kidney failure is the cause of the development of jaundice and yellowing of the skin, which gave the disease its name.
Despite vaccination and improved treatments, the epidemic still flares up intermittently in South America and Africa to this day.
Epidemic 2: Typhus
The tiny microbe Rickettsia prowazekii is the cause of one of the world's most devastating infectious diseases: typhus.
Humanity has been suffering from the disease for centuries, with thousands of people becoming its victims. Given the fact that the disease often affected the military, it is called "camp fever" or "war fever". During the 30-year war in Europe (1618-1648), typhus, plague and famine claimed the lives of 10 million people. Sometimes outbreaks of typhus dictated the outcome of an entire war. For example, when Spanish troops besieged the Moorish fortress of Granada in 1489, an outbreak of typhus immediately killed 17,000 soldiers within a month, leaving an army of 8,000 people. Due to the devastating effects of typhus, another century passed before the Spaniards were able to drive the Moors out of their state. Also during the First World War, this disease claimed several million lives in Russia, Poland and Romania.
The symptoms of a typhoid epidemic usually include headache, loss of appetite, malaise, and rapid fever. This quickly develops into a fever, accompanied by chills and nausea. Left untreated, the disease affects the circulation, resulting in gangrene, pneumonia, and kidney failure.
Improvements in medical treatment and sanitation have greatly reduced the likelihood of a typhoid epidemic in the modern era. The advent of the typhoid vaccine during World War II helped effectively eradicate the disease in the developed world. However, outbreaks still occur in parts of South America, Africa and Asia.
Epidemic 1: Polio
Researchers suspect that polio has plagued mankind for millennia, paralyzing and killing thousands of children. In 1952, there were an estimated 58,000 cases of polio in the United States, with one-third of the patients paralyzed, and more than 3,000 people died.
The cause of the disease is poliovirus, which targets the human nervous system. The virus is often spread through contaminated water and food. Initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, nausea, with one in 200 cases resulting in paralysis. Although the disease usually affects the legs, sometimes the disease spreads to the respiratory muscles, usually resulting in death.
Polio is common in children, but adults are also susceptible to the disease. It all depends on when a person first encounters the virus. The immune system is better prepared to fight the disease at an early age, so the older the person who is first diagnosed with the virus, the higher the risk of paralysis and death.
Poliomyelitis has been known to man since ancient times. Over time, especially in children, the immune system has become stronger and better able to respond to the course of the disease. In the 18th century, sanitary conditions improved in many countries. This limited the spread of the disease, while there was a decrease in immune resistance, and the chances of getting it at a young age gradually disappeared. As a result, an increasing number of people were exposed to the virus at an older age, and the number of cases of paralysis in developed countries has increased dramatically.
To date, there is no effective drug for polio, but doctors are constantly improving the vaccine, which was released in the early 1950s. Since then, the number of polio cases in the United States and other developed countries has declined sharply, and only a small number of developing countries still suffer from frequent polio epidemics. Since humans are the only carriers of the virus, widespread vaccination ensures that the disease is almost completely eradicated.
