7 of the worst epidemics in human history

The new year 2020 began with the emergence of a new virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan. To date, the coronavirus has already claimed about 100 lives and continues to test people for strength. The history of mankind has more than once known extremely dangerous viruses and epidemics that claimed millions of lives, sowing panic and chaos in their wake. But even in the most terrible of all infections people managed to win and live on ... exactly until the next outbreak of some mutated flu.

6 PHOTOS

1. Plague of Justinian

The first recorded outbreak of plague in the world. This sore appeared in 541 in Byzantium and claimed about 100 million lives. To understand the breadth of the problem, it is worth mentioning that the entire population of the then world did not exceed 400-450 million. All of Europe experienced the sad consequences of the plague, but the Byzantine Empire suffered the greatest losses, which soon fell, never fully recovering from the consequences.

2. Bubonic plague

The most famous pandemic around the world was called the Black Death and claimed from 75 to 200 million people. This disease mainly struck Europe, Asia, and Africa in the middle of the 14th century. In some regions and provinces, the mortality rate was up to 90%. The plague was manifested by numerous bleeding ulcers on the body (the so-called "buboes") and high fever. Naturally, medieval healing methods in the form of applying herbs and snakeskin to wounds did not give the desired result, so the fight against the pandemic was difficult and protracted.

3. Cholera

The first cholera epidemic began in 1816. The spread of a terrible intestinal infection at that time was facilitated by heat, water pollution, and mass congestion of people near the rivers. It is noteworthy that cholera outbreaks still occur in hotel parts of the world. One of the latest is the outbreak of cholera on the island of Haiti in 2010, which claimed about 800 thousand lives.

4. smallpox

This disease overthrew the lives of 40% of those infected and left terrible consequences for the survivors in the form of scars from ulcers and blindness. The beginning of spread of the disease starts from the 4th to the 8th century AD, periodically flaring up in Europe, then in America, then in Russia. Smallpox vaccination began in the late 18th century, and by the mid-1980s, the disease had been completely eradicated worldwide.

5. Spanish flu or "Spanish flu"

This flu has become the most massive epidemic of all time, both in terms of the number of people infected and the number of deaths. During the 18 months of the rampage of the epidemic, about 550 million people, or 29.5% of the world's population, were infected. Of these, 50-100 million died, and thus the mortality rate from influenza was 10-20%. The main reason for the development of the pandemic is post-war devastation and unsanitary conditions, as well as poor nutrition. The epidemic got its characteristic name because of the strong outbreak that first manifested itself in Spain.

6. Ebola

In February 2014, the world faced a new terrible epidemic called Ebola. The first cases of the disease were recorded in Guinea, after which the fever quickly spread to neighboring states - Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Senegal. The mortality rate from this fever reaches 90%, and doctors to this day have not found an effective means of combating the epidemic, although the panic around it has already subsided ...

Coronavirus 2020

The “freshest” of all viruses is considered to be the coronavirus that has arrived in China. Its outbreak occurred in the city of Wuhan, with a population of about 11 million. The danger of the virus lies in the fact that it is transmitted from person to person and today around 3,000 people have already been infected around the world. The animal market in Wuhan, where thousands of residents go shopping, is believed to be the source of the virus. At the moment, 13 cities with a population of more than 41 million people have already been quarantined. The authorities are doing everything possible to prevent the spread of the virus, and countries that have not yet been affected by the virus are taking the necessary measures to prevent the virus from invading their territory.