11 Biggest Epidemics in Human History

Do you want to know more about 11 biggest epidemics in human history? One of the greatest catastrophes in the history of humanity was the introduction of European diseases to the Americas. Measles, smallpox, influenza, even bubonic plague devastated the native population in both North and South America, leaving millions of dead in their wake.Spanish flu, black death, typhus, AIDS,

The epidemic is an unusual often occurrence of one disease in one population. Epidemic diseases include, among others, cholera, influenza, typhus, and plague. As a rule, it’s always about infectious diseases. Sometimes this term is also used for non-infectious diseases such as obesity, to describe hazards as its consequences.Spanish flu, black death, typhus, AIDS, cholera, and malaria are the largest epidemics that have changed people’s lives and the course of history in general. Unlike the epidemic, endemic describes the average and shared occurrence or spread of disease among a single population. For example, for instance, a certain percentage of flu patients is entirely reasonable. As soon as the number of patients crosses one particular border (in the case of influenza it is 10%), an epidemic can be said. Epidemics that cross national or even continental boundaries are called pandemics. Although the history of humanity is abundant with wars and battles, the greatest battles have led, and some are still leading with contagious diseases. Diseases have always been an unwanted companion for the advancement of humanity. They used to be so deadly, that entire villages and towns were ravaged. The sixth cholera pandemics broke out in India in 1899. It killed about 800,000 people there and an additional 500,000 in Europe, Middle East, and North Africa. Asian fly originated in China in early 1957. By summer it reached the continental United States. At first, it didn’t look all that dangerous, but then a second wave hit. By March 1958, almost 70,000 people in the United States alone died. Other epidemics such as cholera, typhus, malaria, and SARS have also appeared in modern times, but thanks to medical advancement, today we are struggling with all of these diseases with quite a success. It is also important to emphasize the significant role of vaccination that has successfully eradicated diseases such as paralysis and smallpox. Today there are increasingly powerful anti-vaccination movements. Surely it is now straightforward to bicker how the world looked before the vaccine and how many human lives were saved for it, but we must not allow ourselves to remain by unproven research and various conspiracy theories without an essential weapon in the struggle for world health.

Check Insider’s Monkey list of 11 Biggest Epidemics in Human History and find out more about this interesting topic.

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