Black Death: 75-200M (1334-1353) In 1346 it struck a trading port called Kaffa in the Black Sea. Ships from departing Kaffa carried trade goods and also carried rats, who carried fleas, who carried Yersinia Pestis. In October 1347, 12 such ships docked at Messina in Sicily, their hulls full of dead and dying sailors.
The Black Death (1346-1353)
The Spanish Flu
It ultimately caused at least 50 million deaths worldwide with about 675,000 deaths happening in the U.S. The 1918 flu was especially virulent, per the CDC. While much remains undocumented about the Spanish flu, the CDC notes that one well-documented effect was rapid and severe lung damage.
1. Bubonic Plague. Bubonic Plague is a potentially fatal infectious disease caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Throughout centuries, the disease has erupted several times in different eras, claiming between ten and millions of lives worldwide.
While challenging to directly compare, it is likely that COVID-19 will not eventuate as the most damaging pandemic to society, both historically and in the modern age. The other pandemics discussed herein have had significant impacts on societies globally, with larger rates of infection and mortality.
That makes it worse in absolute terms than most influenza pandemics in history, except 1918's; worse than the seven cholera pandemics of the 19th and early 20th century; but much less bad than HIV, 1918, or the Black Death and associated bubonic plague outbreaks.
Black Death: 75-200M (1334-1353)
The pandemic has often been assumed to have started in China, but lack of physical and specific textual evidence for it in 14th century China has resulted in continued disputes on the origin to this day. Other theories of origin place the first cases in the steppes of Central Asia or the Near East.
1. Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)
cancer. dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. advanced lung, heart, kidney and liver disease. stroke and other neurological diseases, including motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis.
Abstract. The novel human coronavirus disease COVID-19 has become the fifth documented pandemic since the 1918 flu pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, has declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic (1).
Most people with COVID-19 get better within a few days to a few weeks after infection, so at least four weeks after infection is the start of when Long COVID could first be identified. Anyone who was infected can experience Long COVID.
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.
The last urban plague epidemic in the United States occurred in Los Angeles from 1924 through 1925. Plague then spread from urban rats to rural rodent species, and became entrenched in many areas of the western United States. Since that time, plague has occurred as scattered cases in rural areas.
Bubonic plague is an infection spread mostly to humans by infected fleas that travel on rodents. Called the Black Death, it killed millions of Europeans during the Middle Ages.
Ebolaviruses were first described in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, ebolaviruses have emerged periodically and infected people in several African countries.
Leading causes of death globally
The world's biggest killer is ischaemic heart disease, responsible for 16% of the world's total deaths. Since 2000, the largest increase in deaths has been for this disease, rising by more than 2 million to 8.9 million deaths in 2019.
The U.S. has highest rate of disease burden among comparable countries, and the gap is growing - Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.
The plague caused an epidemic in China in the 1330s, and again in the 1350s, causing tens of millions of deaths. The 1330s outbreak also spread west across Central Asia via traders using the Silk Road.
The Black Death, a plague that killed up to 60% of people in western Eurasia from roughly 1346 to 1353, likely originated in the Tian Shan mountains of central Asia, new research shows.
The Black Death made its way through Asia, Europe and Africa from 1347 to 1351, and probably brought the world's then 450 million population down to 350 million. Approximately 50% of China's population perished, while Europe's went down by a third and Africa by an eighth.
But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people—easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.
In untreated victims, the rates rise to about 50 percent for bubonic and 100 percent for septicemic. The mortality rate for untreated pneumonic plague is 100 percent; death occurs within 24 hours.
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.