The 12 deadliest viruses on Earth

Meh

Mar 5, 2020
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Not sure where the name SARS-CoV-2 came from. The official WHO name is COVID-19.

The name of the virus itself, free floating without having infected anyone is SARS-CoV-2 (there's also two strains of it, an S and and L strain). When someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the disease is called COVID-19. One is the name of the infectious particle, the other is the name of the disease.
 
Mar 5, 2020
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The name of the virus itself, free floating without having infected anyone is SARS-CoV-2 (there's also two strains of it, an S and and L strain). When someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the disease is called COVID-19. One is the name of the infectious particle, the other is the name of the disease.
Sorry - my mistake. You are correct. COVID-19 is the name of the illness and not the virus itself, and the article is about the viruses. Had I read more closely, my comment would have been "Not sure where the name SARS-CoV-2 came from. The official WHO name is 2019-nCoV ." I am new to all this. My background is engineering - not infectious organisms or diseases. Now having dug a little deeper, I see different groups seem to have different names for the same virus. I note that the WHO says COVID-19 is different from SARS. So that has me wondering why anyone would decide to use SARS in the name if a virus that does not (according to WHO at least) cause SARS.
 
Mar 6, 2020
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Sorry - my mistake. You are correct. COVID-19 is the name of the illness and not the virus itself, and the article is about the viruses. Had I read more closely, my comment would have been "Not sure where the name SARS-CoV-2 came from. The official WHO name is 2019-nCoV ." I am new to all this. My background is engineering - not infectious organisms or diseases. Now having dug a little deeper, I see different groups seem to have different names for the same virus. I note that the WHO says COVID-19 is different from SARS. So that has me wondering why anyone would decide to use SARS in the name if a virus that does not (according to WHO at least) cause SARS.
See here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0695-z
" Thus, the reference to SARS in all these virus names (combined with the use of specific prefixes, suffixes and/or genome sequence IDs in public databases) acknowledges the phylogenetic (rather than clinical disease-based) grouping of the respective virus with the prototypic virus in that species (SARS-CoV). The CSG chose the name SARS-CoV-2 based on the established practice for naming viruses in this species and the relatively distant relationship of this virus to the prototype SARS-CoV in a species tree and the distance space"
 
Mar 6, 2020
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Comment on rabies fatality rate. The classic exposure /infection/terminology is difficult to employ when speaking about rabies. Although all warm-blooded animals are thought to be susceptible to rabies, there are strains of the rabies virus ( multiple bat stains ) strains are maintained in particular reservoir host(s), with some cross over especially in the US between raccoons and skunks. Although a strain can cause rabies in other species, the virus usually dies out during serial passage in species to which it is not adapted, and non-carnivores (cows, horses, deer, groundhogs, beavers ) AND CATS, like small rodents, are dead-end hosts. The CDC estimates in the US, 1 million dollars per potential life saved is spent by post-exposure prophylaxis in cases of exposure to animals other than bats, canines, fox, raccoon, skunks. At some point, the inability to PROVE this may be trumped by statistics; when I became a veterinarian in 1975, PEP was still recommended for squirrel and gerbil bites. Hundreds of (unvaccinated) cats are infected with, and die ( or are euthanized) of rabies each year -no way every human exposure to "the kitten in the park " is tracked down. Certainly, many farmers and ranchers are unknowingly exposed. Yet almost all of the 6-9 people diagnosed in the US yearly, knew they were bitten by a dog (when outside the US) or handled a bat. And there have been several incidences since 2000, where people got rabies secondary to solid organ transplants. This had been thought only a risk when transplanting 'nerve' tissue (corneas), I wonder if this reflects better and/or different immunosuppressive drugs in recipients.

Species vary in susceptibility to various strains, humans are 'most' susceptible to canine rabies and, in the US, the silver-haired bat strain. This is a solitary bat with infrequent human interaction, whereas we have much more exposure to big and little brown bats and Mexican free-tailed bats. (Only a small percentage of any of these have rabies, -it kills them too!)

The virus needs to get to a nerve, so if a bite is not deep enough, or a small viral load is deposited, or the 'victim' immune system responds - an infection will never be established. If the virus is able to get to a nerve, it attempts to travel up an axon, to the brain- again, the immune system may eliminate. As rabies is a slow virus, it can self -immunize, explaining the presence of rabies neutralizing antibodies in Amazonian Indians and others who have never been vaccinated? (The reason why a mature dog is considered immunized 28 days after its first rabies vaccination, is if it has been exposed or is 'incubating' rabies virus but the virus is more than 28 days away the vaccine will prevent infection. Although antiglobulin is given, PEP - a killed vaccine, is basically, rapid immunization. I am pulling this from memory but I believe in cases where multiple people were bitten by a rabid dog, in 15% infection was established. Once the the virus is in the brain and /or clinical signs are seen, then it is almost always, fatal. Since definitive diagnosis is made on brain biopsy, the apparent spontaneous cures or response to treatment remain unproven.

Not to diminish the threat or the misery of this disease. I don't understand why the WHO estimate of deaths has been quoted as 35,000 to 55,000 for the last 40 years - while the world population went from approximately 4 billion to 8 billion, mostly in Africa and Asia where few dogs are vaccinated and most cases are seen.
 
Mar 7, 2020
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Humans have been fighting viruses throughout history. Here are the 12 viruses that are the world's worst killers, based on their mortality rates, or the sheer numbers of people they have killed.

... on COVID-19 origin

"The virus likely originated in bats, like SARS-CoV, and passed through an intermediate animal before infecting people. "
...
dear admin, i don't see solid evidence and facts that this new strain of virus originated from Bats, passing thru animals, then to human. Should we sample and study the Bats or animal carcasses for more evidence? Even the latest chinese scientists from Wuhan flip to suggest that other sources is potential. Indonesia market for example has high appetite for Bats as food.

It seems that humans are passing the virus to dogs and cats now. also, it is well known there is a P4 virus lab located nearby the Wuhan market. my question - is there any regulations that governs the building of such dangerous lab so close to the mass human neighbourhood?
 
Mar 18, 2020
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See here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0695-z
" Thus, the reference to SARS in all these virus names (combined with the use of specific prefixes, suffixes and/or genome sequence IDs in public databases) acknowledges the phylogenetic (rather than clinical disease-based) grouping of the respective virus with the prototypic virus in that species (SARS-CoV). The CSG chose the name SARS-CoV-2 based on the established practice for naming viruses in this species and the relatively distant relationship of this virus to the prototype SARS-CoV in a species tree and the distance space"

And in any case, the World Health Organization (WHO) is not the naming authority for novel viruses — this is the job of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) and in this case specifically the Coronaviridae Study Group (CSG, or ICTV-CSG) which concluded that the virus that causes COVID-19 should be named SARS-CoV-2

The WHO on the other hand is the naming authority for novel diseases, and the name 2019-nCoV for the virus causing COVID-19 was only of a provisional nature, signifying a novel coronavirus discovered in 2019. Official classification of viruses is a scientific process, where the degree of relatedness (of novel viruses to those previously identified) is considered. By actually comparing the genome of the novel coronavirus to the genomes of related viruses, looking at certain replicative proteins, it was clear that SARS-CoV (causing SARS) and SARS-CoV-2 (causing COVID-19) are quite close to each other genetically, even though nothing indicates that the latter is a direct descendent of the former. Both are also much more closely related to other coronaviruses, known to infect Asian and African bats respectively. In contrast, none of them are as closely related to MERS-CoV as they are to each other. On the other hand, these three are more closely related to each other, than any of them are to the other coronaviruses known to infect humans. The three previously discussed (causing major epidemics in recent decades) are zoonotic viruses, meaning they are believed to momentarily “spill over” from animals to humans. The other four coronaviruses infecting humans are common respiratory viruses that circulate continually among us, with symptoms ranging from the common cold (which can be caused by more than 200 virus strains) to more high-morbidity outcomes
 
Mar 21, 2020
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it tells you that first was sars 1 that came from bats and hopped into a nocturnal mammal called videts then sars 2 or covid 19 which also came from bats and possibly hopped into other mammals like The Pangolin that has a 99% identical match to the virus. then the sars 3 they al are a family of Coronaviruses.
 
Apr 17, 2020
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Humans have been fighting viruses throughout history. Here are the 12 viruses that are the world's worst killers, based on their mortality rates, or the sheer numbers of people they have killed.

The 12 deadliest viruses on Earth : Read more
Why do you omit & ignore Hepatitis?
Hepatitis in various versions are prevalent & deadly, especially HCV. Even among USA:
  • Since 2012, there have been more deaths due to hepatitis C than all 60 of the other reportable infectious diseases combined.
Where's the concern & shutdown? Likely more that I could pick apart your article, but this omission was egregious & easy. People are suffering & dying from injuries & illness while neglected appropriate treatment & truth suppressed from exposure while a blatant ruse promoted with misinforming propaganda, fraud, & deliberate misdiagnoses, then exploited by individual & systemic corruption.
 
May 6, 2020
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See here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0695-z
" Thus, the reference to SARS in all these virus names (combined with the use of specific prefixes, suffixes and/or genome sequence IDs in public databases) acknowledges the phylogenetic (rather than clinical disease-based) grouping of the respective virus with the prototypic virus in that species (SARS-CoV). The CSG chose the name SARS-CoV-2 based on the established practice for naming viruses in this species and the relatively distant relationship of this virus to the prototype SARS-CoV in a species tree and the distance space"

Was the Virus started by someone eating a bat?
 
May 9, 2020
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"Humans have been battling viruses since before our species had even evolved into its modern form. For some viral diseases, vaccines and antiviral drugs have allowed us to keep infections from spreading widely, and have helped sick people recover."

This is misleading information! You talk about evolution then modern medicines as if natural medicinal herbs never existed.. why?? Modern medicine never existed within 100 years.. So why don't you explained how humans survived millions of years ago with out the used of VACCINES and DRUGS? **mic drop**
 
May 23, 2020
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Is it still correct to call this virus SARS-CoV-2 when it mainly attacks blood vessels and is mainly responsible for microthromboses, which cause strokes, heart attacks, etc.? From one source I learned that this virus apparently contains HIV/Ebola genome. This mutation may have occurred in a person infected with this disease(s).
 
Not to diminish the threat or the misery of this disease. I don't understand why the WHO estimate of deaths has been quoted as 35,000 to 55,000 for the last 40 years - while the world population went from approximately 4 billion to 8 billion, mostly in Africa and Asia where few dogs are vaccinated and most cases are seen.

I suspect that with the increase in human population the rate at which potentially rabid dogs are destroyed also increases in effectiveness. Basically the same mechanism that cause animal species to go extinct are also reducing the actual number of rabid animals near human population centers.

So the number of rabid animals that live long enough to reach the attack stage and spread rabies is probably going down at the same rate as human population climbs...at least near concentrated human population centers. I would speculate that most human rabid animal bites occur in the most rural areas where human kill efforts are weakest and surviving rabid animal numbers are therefore much higher.

Modeling this situation as a ring around denser population centers suggests that the effective increased rabies contact area increases with the square root of the human population. Or since human population tends to concentrate into ever higher densities in larger towns and cities, the rabies danger zone more likely increases proportionately to the square root of the increases in urbanized areas. All told its not surprising rabies bites should be be reaching a plateau with human population densities so high.

Even in Africa. Once you have reliable high powered portable lights for the night, it does NOT take much tech or costly weapons to kill a dog. This is especially true since rabies addles an animal's normal attack actions and coordination. Fortunately for us that includes pack hunting behaviors. Rabids tend to be solo.
 
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"Humans have been battling viruses since before our species had even evolved into its modern form. For some viral diseases, vaccines and antiviral drugs have allowed us to keep infections from spreading widely, and have helped sick people recover."

This is misleading information! You talk about evolution then modern medicines as if natural medicinal herbs never existed.. why?? Modern medicine never existed within 100 years.. So why don't you explained how humans survived millions of years ago with out the used of VACCINES and DRUGS? **mic drop**

Humanity as a whole survived by Darwin rules. Huge percentages of people actually died on many occasions.

The Black Plague was actually fairly recent and guesses say 30-60% of European humanity died before it was over (mass death tends to disturb record keeping especially when literacy is low and census is not common everywhere). Before that the Bubonics plagues had similar tolls.

But exactly how many "bunny people" do you think it takes to repopulate? If after the plague, 4 kids survive in each family then the population doubles every 25 years or less. Every 250 years should see a 1000-fold increase in human population or 500 years a million-fold increase.

So given a time span of several million years -- its certain humanity was nearly wiped out many times by something bigger than primitive wars. Otherwise we would have trillions of humans on Earth now. And since even prehistoric humans could walk toward the equator much faster than glaciers spread...that suggests diseases were a big natural throttle on human numbers.
 
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"Humans have been battling viruses since before our species had even evolved into its modern form. For some viral diseases, vaccines and antiviral drugs have allowed us to keep infections from spreading widely, and have helped sick people recover."

This is misleading information! You talk about evolution then modern medicines as if natural medicinal herbs never existed.. why?? Modern medicine never existed within 100 years.. So why don't you explained how humans survived millions of years ago with out the used of VACCINES and DRUGS? **mic drop**

Herbal medicine is the root of many over the counter modern drugs. But herbal medicines, just like their modern, are mainly treatments for relief of symptoms. They deliver comfort not cures or life savings in most infectious disease cases. Herbals do however help with some long term conditions like blood pressure which is not an infectious disease. Herbals do cure or significant assist with overcoming a few bacterial based infectious diseases - by poisoning the bacteria. But herbals generally need modern medicine refinements to extract specific molecules and control doses in order to poison a wider variety of bacteriological based diseases in a safe manner.

Note: Virus based diseases are generally too subtle to be susceptible to poisoning without also killing the patient. Thus I am not aware of any cases where herbal medicine has been proven to be effective against viral diseases. I am sure there are plenty of claims by any survivors who want to make money - possibly even faith. But scientific proof means repeatability upon demand - if not in every case at least strong statistics in larger numbers of cases without hand selecting the results.

I will grant you that there well could be individual anomaly cases, like a individual whose weird genetics can eat 100 times the commonly lethal dose of arsenic might poison some disease and live to tell the tale. But that case would not prove a cure for the general populace as the cure would kill almost everyone else. So if you are special but obviously not normal - do not share your cure with anyone but curious scientists. When they can copy your genetics to other people, only then does your bizarre and extreme cure help others.
 
Mar 6, 2020
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I suspect that with the increase in human population the rate at which potentially rabid dogs are destroyed also increases in effectiveness. Basically the same mechanism that cause animal species to go extinct are also reducing the actual number of rabid animals near human population centers.

So the number of rabid animals that live long enough to reach the attack stage and spread rabies is probably going down at the same rate as human population climbs...at least near concentrated human population centers. I would speculate that most human rabid animal bites occur in the most rural areas where human kill efforts are weakest and surviving rabid animal numbers are therefore much higher.

Modeling this situation as a ring around denser population centers suggests that the effective increased rabies contact area increases with the square root of the human population. Or since human population tends to concentrate into ever higher densities in larger towns and cities, the rabies danger zone more likely increases proportionately to the square root of the increases in urbanized areas. All told its not surprising rabies bites should be be reaching a plateau with human population densities so high.

Even in Africa. Once you have reliable high powered portable lights for the night, it does NOT take much tech or costly weapons to kill a dog. This is especially true since rabies addles an animal's normal attack actions and coordination. Fortunately for us that includes pack hunting behaviors. Rabids tend to be solo.
 
Mar 6, 2020
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A lot of the statistical math is over my head, but I get just enough to question if the writer is applying the epidemiology of diseases which are transmitted in ways other than a penetrating bite, don't have a highly variable incubation period ( 2 weeks to 6 mo in dogs, 2 weeks to a year in humans), may abort the infection (self-vaccinate) or if do become infected, (domestic species ) are only 'contagious' for 10-14 days before they die.

If an area has 100 unvaccinated dogs, may have more than one at a time developed clinical rabies, and those with "furious" rabies may expose other dogs and people for the 10 days before they die, but that exposed / infected dog or human may live for 4-6 months or longer before developing rabies, if they do. Some of the dogs (and humans) bitten, will never show rabies - the virus will abort, and in effect, the 'victim' will be vaccinated. Killing dogs showing obvious signs is easy and you don't need night lights. 'Mad dogs and Englishmen stay out the noonday sun' because -- there are no ups and downs in rabies, just a fairly rapid, progressive encephalitis. Normally nocturnal, shy wildlife being out in the day, showing no fear or recognition of humans is a cardinal sign.

"....the same mechanism that cause animal species to go extinct is also reducing the actual number of rabid animals near human population centers".

That might be true for bats, or mongoose, but increased human density, if anything, increases domestic dog density -both feral and semi-owned, and opportunity for exposure. Cats can truly become feral and very shym but n for domestic dogs; freeloading on humans was the major driver of dog domestication. The denser the population,n the more garbage - the more dogs.

That I know of rabies was in wildlife reservoirs, has ever had had rabies "die out". I may be wrong there might be some island that only had one species with rabies and they all died out (vs were eliminated). Controlling or eliminating the canine strain of rabies in dogs - (which we are relatively susceptible to ) which live in close proximity to us, where it has been effective, (US and Canada and (maybe all of ) Mexico), was accomplished by vaccination, +/- culling. The latter alone would never have worked much less trying to 'take out' rabid dogs 1 by 1 - that already happens).

We have to be vigilant because, well, humans are irresponsible
idiots ( 30% say they wouldn't take a Corona vaccine - it should not be surprising although legally required in 49 states dog vaccination rates are depressingly low). The biggest threat to rabies control in dogs in the US is the importation of pet dogs from Russia and India. What saves us, is rabies vaccine are HIGHLY effective - FAR better than measles. And, species strains are perpetuated most effectively in those species, only. When a strain crosses species, most cases dead- end.

I was trying to make two points - until we accept or prove which animals can only effectively pass their rabies strain (which is most), we will continue to waste hundreds of millions of dollars of PEP unnecessarily treating people in developed countries, while it is unavailable to those truly at risk in poor countries with dog rabies. In the US, with no native dogs with canine strain since 2004, the dog that contracts rabies from a skunk almost certainly cannot infect a person,. but because of the fear of the disease and "because we can" there maybe 50 people who "weren't even 'in the room where it happened'" given PEP. (Actually, the biggest waste concerns PEP and domestic cats). Again I am not sure of the numbers but I would guess a rabid dog in India exposes by biting, a max of 10 people before it dies. Of which, 20%-30% may develop the disease, and without PEP -die

Point 2 -- I don't think WHO numbers were ever anything more than a guess, and they still are. Not even addressing suspect vs proven, or if reportable in every country. What we are told are "yearly flu deaths" in the US -- are retrospective estimates. I don't believe there are any exponential or intricate epidemiological shifts going on. If the numbers 50 years ago were true, between population explosion, recent few decades of social upheaval crippling public health in poor countries, the numbers should have risen. WHO numbers have ping-ponged for 50 years between 35,000 and 75,000. almost certainly because - they were and are, made up.
 
Aug 2, 2020
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List started well though some numbers need to be updated. Deteriorated towards the end though. Would rework it, but competent enough and better than most of the crap being put out lately 🙂
 
Oct 15, 2020
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I suspect that I have a much better answer to your question about why
so much about Covid, and not so much about HepC.

1) Covid-19 has killed so far this year (1.1M), more than double HepC has had at it's very worst (around 500,000). In fact, HIV/AIDS (also a reportable disease) at its peak was killing as many per year as Covid-19, double HepC.

1a) HIV/AIDS is globally 14th in the leading causes of death in 2019. HepC about 16th. Covid-19 is 12th

1b) In the US, during April, Covid-19 was #1 cause of death in the US. Right now it's #3. HIV/AIDS hasn't been above #15 since 1997. HepC is less than a 1/10th of Covid. In fact, Covid-19 is still killing more people in the US than all infectious diseases put together including HepC and HIV/AIDS.

1c) The levels of hepC and HIV/AIDS took decades to get to the level it is now. Covid-19? 10 months.

2) HepC's behaviour is relatively well understood, because it's been around and known for well over 100 years. HIV/AIDS since about 1910 (low incidence until the 50s) and also relatively well understood. Covid, about 1 year. So we don't know what it will do next year - with HepC HIV/AIDS it will be the same as last year, only a little less due to (4&5).

3) The course of HepC and HIV/AIDS are very long - usually decades. Covid? As short as a week, or as long as 3 months (usually).

4) Both HepC and HIV/AIDS have extremely effective treatments, and HIV/AIDS has partial vaccine coverage so far. Covid has neither. The
problems with HIV/AIDS and HepC is economic (affording the treatments), not scientific. Covid is not well into the productive part science yet.

5) HepC and HIV/AIDS are both blood-borne diseases, meaning that casual contact will not create disease, the number of resulting infections relatively low, and spreads slowly. Covid is casual-contact, and the disease spreads like wildfire without strong behavioural controls.

6) You didn't anticipate how bad Covid might become, even tho you wrote during the worst death spike in the US to-date. The scientists knew that it could do this, and worse. The Spanish flu did. We don't even know whether immunity reliably lasts for more than a few months or if it will still be around 2 years from now. Neither Spanish Flu or SARS were.

7) if you don't mention, say, TB are you ignoring them too? No. The article was about one disease, and one disease only.

Why do you omit & ignore Hepatitis?
Hepatitis in various versions are prevalent & deadly, especially HCV. Even among USA:
  • Since 2012, there have been more deaths due to hepatitis C than all 60 of the other reportable infectious diseases combined.
Where's the concern & shutdown? Likely more that I could pick apart your article, but this omission was egregious & easy. People are suffering & dying from injuries & illness while neglected appropriate treatment & truth suppressed from exposure while a blatant ruse promoted with misinforming propaganda, fraud, & deliberate misdiagnoses, then exploited by individual & systemic corruption.