The worst epidemics in human history

Abstract

Today the world's attention is focused on China, on the epidemic caused by coronavirus infection. As of the end of February, more than 77 thousand people affected with the disease had been registered, fatal outcome had been observed in more than 2500 cases. The Chinese authorities announced the beginning of a new epidemic at the very end of 2019. Moreover, if fatal outcomes were observed a month after the onset of mass incidence only within the country, then, in February, they went beyond its borders and were registered in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Iran, the Philippines, France and Italy. It is noteworthy that China became a source of the spread of the epidemic process not for the first time. So, in 2002 it was in this country, in Guangdong, that an outbreak of SARS was recorded, and in 1997, avian influenza spread from Hong Kong around the world. To tell the truth, the death rate from these diseases did not exceed thousands of people in both cases, and in the case of bird flu (or avian influenza), development of the disease was observed only in people eating chicken meat. It should be noted that in the entire history of the development of mankind, more people died as a result of epidemics and pandemics, than in all wars combined. Let us recall the worst epidemics in the history of mankind, the victims of which were millions of people.