Countdown: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history

[admin]

Disease outbreaks have ravaged humanity from prehistory to modern times, sometimes changing the course of history and even wiping out entire civilizations.

Countdown: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history : Read more

 

[north1coast]

Has something happened to facilitate these epidemics? They seem to be occurring more frequently.

 

[Tom Miller]

Yes, the massive increase of human population moving into places formerly only inhabited by wild animals, therefor exposing people to pathogens they were not in in the past.

 

[ETHANANGSK1]

Coronavirus (Covid-19) will join this list very soon once it is over!

 

[iiDemonKing]

Has something happened to facilitate these epidemics? They seem to be occurring more frequently.

One of the biggest reasons people think like this is due to the fact that we have much more information on recent outbreaks. I believe they are actually getting less and less in both effect (Compared to the total population [Because population is increasing, effects will obviously also increase, compared to historic ones.]) due to better medication in actually preventing these. Imagine we didn't have ANY protection at birth. SO many more outbreaks would happen instantly and simultaneously without protection. By information systems getting better, I don't mean only about the past. Information is also getting getting out and spread in the current time as well, so you know more about the events going on WHILE they are going on. There are small outbreaks every once in a while but for it to spread and become known and get on these lists, information systems are essential.
Hope this answers your question.

 

[LMB1]

What about the Hong Kong Flu of 1968?

 

[jbloe0401]

Yes, the massive increase of human population moving into places formerly only inhabited by wild animals, therefor exposing people to pathogens they were not in in the past.

That explanation is based on fear and so far removed from reality and fact that it's laughable. Consider the human population today and where humans lived, populated, migrated -- relative to the number of acknowledged epidemic and pandemic -- and consider how many of those events have taken place during the times of greatest population influxes, movements and declines? Those events are not contingent or related. SARS was manufactured in a lab (also a gift from China). Ebola was not deadly until scientists morphed the cells in a lab and made it deadly in trying to change the cell behavior. Find the video by Dr. Mikovitz Phd. and she perfectly explains the reason why virus geneticists cannot identify a 'natural virus ancestry' that links to this 'Wuhan virus' that has been mutating and spreading at an unheard of rate. Consider the Bubonic plague never had a cure but dwindled out once the unhealthy, weak, infirm and elderly died of it - what remained of the population then were the healthy people who survived it. Bubonic plague still exists in pockets of the globe but it doesn't wreak havoc among populations because the virus cannot spread among the resilient populations as it did among the unhealthy and those who were not practicing consistently safe hygiene.

 

[Wintercore]

LOL... the picture used for epidemic/pandemic #7, the Cocoliztli epidemic, which affected Mexico and Central America, is actually of a photo of Aztec Ruins National Monument in Aztec, NM, USA. They are Pueblo Indian ruins from about 900 years ago; not Aztec ruins of 470 years past.

 

[JaneS13]

There have been many illnesses or sicknesses but these are just some of the worst ones

 

[happyecho]

Has something happened to facilitate these epidemics? They seem to be occurring more frequently.

Yes Airplanes and world travel.