Pandemics in the world. The largest epidemics in the history of the USSR

An epidemic is a spread infectious disease, significantly exceeding the normal incidence rate in the area. For an epidemic to occur, a number of prerequisites are necessary: ​​violation of sanitary rules, the presence of sources of infection for vector-borne infections and susceptible populations, insufficient preventive work of health authorities, etc.

The usual (minimal) incidence for a given area and in given historical conditions is called sporadic. These are most often isolated cases of diseases that have no connection with each other. Only in relation to certain infectious diseases, such as influenza, sporadic morbidity is expressed by a sufficiently large number of cases.

An increase in morbidity limited to a small area [one settlement, part of a city (village), hostel, barracks, etc.] and ongoing a short time, is usually called an epidemic outbreak.

The spread of an infectious disease over a large area, sometimes in several countries or on several continents with massive damage to the population, is called.

In cases where infectious disease incidence in a certain territory is recorded continuously, over many years, it is customary to talk about the endemicity or endemicity of a certain disease. If the incidence in a certain territory is recorded for a long time due to poor sanitary conditions (dysentery due to poor water supply and cleaning, lice), then they speak of so-called statistical endemicity. If this incidence is associated with the presence of certain natural conditions (constant circulation of the pathogen among marmots, ground squirrels or gerbils, the presence in the area of ​​infection keepers such as ticks or ticks, etc.), then they speak of true endemicity of this disease.

Infectious diseases that are unusual, unusual for a given area (country) and imported from other, often distant places, are called exotic (for the USSR - smallpox, etc.).

In the movement of infectious morbidity, quantitative fluctuations are observed according to the time of year (seasonality). They are caused by the influence of natural conditions. Thus, seasonal increases in morbidity can be determined by seasonal fluctuations in the activity of vectors (malaria, mosquito fever, etc.), some features of the life of animals - sources of infection, for example, during the winter of gophers and marmots, possible human contact with them is cut off and thereby prevents the possibility of the appearance of plague; The mass proliferation of mouse-like organisms in the autumn-winter period and the appearance of tularemia among them cause a massive morbidity among people. The appearance of vegetables and fruits and their consumption without observing hygiene rules entails intestinal infections, etc.

Epidemic (Greek epidemia, from epi - among and demos - people) is a high degree of intensity of the epidemic process.

The epidemic process is a continuous process of transmission of infection from sick people or sick animals (sources of infection) to healthy people. According to L.V. Gromashevsky, the epidemic process is a continuous chain of infectious conditions following one after another. The intensity of the epidemic process, i.e. the degree of dynamism of infection transmission, depends on the incubation period of the disease (the shorter this period, the faster the process of new infections), the activity and nature of infection transmission factors, and the susceptibility of the population to infection. All these elements make up biological entity epidemic process and determine its intensity.

Socio-biological factors influencing the dynamics of infection transmission include the number of people at risk of infection. With isolated diseases in a family or apartment, the likelihood of new infections is more or less limited. If the disease occurred in a dormitory, school, kindergarten, orphanage, etc., this probability is much greater. Bacterial contamination of the water supply system threatens the health and lives of an immeasurably larger number of people, etc.

Numerous other causes, representing a combination of biological and social factors, also influence the dynamics of transmission. They can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of factors that constrain and slow down the transmission of infection: low population density in the area; absence natural foci vector-borne infections; stability of the local population; communal improvement of populated areas; favorable living conditions and free accommodation in housing; fairly good sanitary conditions at work; high level of sanitary culture of the population, including employees of child care institutions, food industry enterprises, public catering and food trade; the possibility of carrying out planned mass specific infection prevention; high level of clinical and laboratory services to the population; well-organized and carried out hygienic and anti-epidemic work among the population (control over sanitary conditions, working and living conditions of the population, communal, children's institutions, catering and sale food products; well-conducted surveys of epidemic foci, work in foci of infection, identification and neutralization of infection carriers, measures against the introduction of infections from abroad, etc.), etc.

The second group consists of factors that help accelerate the process of transmission of infection: high population density in a given area; the presence of natural foci of vector-borne infections; mobility of the local population (constant or periodic replenishment of the population from visitors from other places in the country or from abroad); insufficient communal amenities and overcrowding in housing; violations of the sanitary labor regime at work; insufficient level of sanitary culture of the population; poor organization of vaccinations or the impossibility of carrying out mass specific prevention (lack of scientifically proven means of specific prevention for a number of infections, absence or shortage of drugs for mass immunization, etc.); unsatisfactory organization of clinical, laboratory and sanitary and anti-epidemic care to the population. The number of factors of both groups is not limited to this list.

The following degrees of intensity of the epidemic process are distinguished: sporadic incidence, focality, epidemic outbreak, seasonal epidemic, local or more widespread epidemic, pandemic. Various degrees the intensity of the epidemic process has a certain biological and social basis.

Sporadic morbidity is characterized by the registration in a given area of ​​single infectious diseases, which undoubtedly sometimes have very distant epidemiological connections with each other, which is why the sources of infection in them very often cannot be detected. Sporadic incidence may indicate the attenuation of the epidemic process, which may depend on many reasons, including depletion of susceptible populations, wide application means of specific prevention, a progressive decrease in the number of long-term carriers of the infection, an increase in the sanitary culture of the population and the communal and sanitary improvement of homes and populated areas, the active identification of primary foci of infection and their timely and reliable neutralization, etc. Under these favorable conditions, the attenuation of the epidemic process may become stable and progress until the disease disappears completely. But it can also be temporary - until the period of the next activation of the relevant factors of infection transmission, until violations of the specific prevention regime or sanitary regime in a broad sense.

Focality - characterizes the intensity of the epidemic process in the focus of an infectious disease. The degree of focality is determined by the number of diseases in the epidemic focus (see). Sometimes in an epidemic focus several similar diseases occur simultaneously or within a short period of time. In other cases, diseases in the outbreak occur sequentially, one after another, at intervals equal to the incubation period of the disease. There may be other options for the occurrence of diseases in the foci. With the current level of anti-epidemic work, morbidity in outbreaks is often limited to one case. With simultaneous diseases, one can think about a common source of infection for all sick people and a food or water transmission route. In the second case (subsequent diseases), the source of infection is the first patient in the outbreak due to household factors of infection transmission. A consistent increase in the number of cases in the same outbreak characterizes the work of an epidemiologist in an unfavorable way.

An epidemic outbreak is characterized by the simultaneous or sequential appearance of diseases among people related to each other general meals, water supply, food supply point, simultaneous contact with patients due to airborne transmission of infection, etc., but of limited, local significance.

Some authors believe that the term "epidemic outbreak" is contrived; that such group diseases are nothing more than an epidemic. However, there is a significant difference between these concepts. For example, a group of diseases of local significance among people who used water from a contaminated well or from a faulty and contaminated water tap cannot but be distinguished from a widespread epidemic due to a malfunction of the main water treatment facilities, when diseases appear simultaneously in many areas of the city. The degree of intensity of the epidemic process, and therefore the number of cases in both cases, is far from the same.

Seasonal epidemics are characterized by an annual increase in the level of diseases to a maximum in certain months of the year, followed by a more or less slow decrease to the level observed in the off-season period. The frequency of seasonal epidemics is associated with biological, climatic and social reasons, determining the activation of infection transmission factors, possibly with an increase in the susceptibility to infection of the population or its individual age groups, the emergence of conditions for more frequent violation hygiene requirements and sanitary regime, especially when the sanitary culture of a significant part of the population is unsatisfactory.

Thus, during seasonal epidemics, a periodic increase in the intensity of the epidemic process is observed. The leading causes of seasonal epidemics can be eliminated by targeting infection transmission factors, population susceptibility and social factors.

Epidemics are a high level of spread of infectious diseases among the population associated with the action of biological and social factors. Among the latter are wars, famines, natural disasters, leading to a deterioration in sanitary and economic working and living conditions of the population, increasing population migration. Under these conditions, infectious diseases can spread over large areas and appear in places where previously they were few or not observed at all. Along with these, local epidemics can also be observed, usually associated with emergency causes (sewage and water supply network failures, contamination of open reservoirs serving as sources of drinking water supply with fecal waste, discharge of undisinfected wastewater from infectious diseases hospitals into public reservoirs, introduction of especially dangerous infections etc.). Local epidemics, under appropriate conditions, can spread far beyond the territory of initial occurrence.

The high degree of intensity of the epidemic process during epidemics is determined by the multiplicity of sources of infection, the high susceptibility of the population to infection, the lack of reliable means of specific prevention, the increased likelihood of encountering infection when traveling on transport, in public premises and depends on the nature of the leading factors of infection transmission.

A pandemic is characterized by a wide spread of an infectious disease covering the entire country, neighboring states, and sometimes many countries of the world. The most famous pandemic is the “Spanish flu”, which affected most of the countries of the world in 1918-1920, and the pandemic of relapsing and typhus in our country in the same years. The worldwide spread of polio after the Second World War can also be considered a pandemic.

Pandemic spread is characteristic of infections to which the population is extremely susceptible, mainly with a short incubation period and an airborne transmission mechanism, especially infections that do not leave strong post-infectious immunity. A typical example of such an infection is influenza, pandemics of which recur periodically.

Epidemic (Greek ἐπιδημία - general disease, from ἐπι - on, among and δῆμος - people) translated from Greek means “endemic disease among the people.” Since ancient times, this is the name given to diseases that progress in time and space and exceed the normal incidence rate in a given territory. But today we will talk about pandemics - epidemics that spread throughout an entire country, several countries, or even outside the country.

Plague

When it comes to epidemics, the first thing that comes to mind is the Black Death, a plague pandemic that wiped out a significant part of the European population and swept through North Africa and the island of Greenland in 1346-1353. The first mention of this terrible disease dates back to 1200 BC. The event is also described in the Old Testament: the Israelites are plagued by failures in the war with the Philistines; after another battle, the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and deliver it to the city of Azoth at the feet of the statue of their god Dagon. Soon a plague hits the city. The Ark was sent to another city, where the disease broke out again, and then to a third city, in which the kings of the five cities of Philistia decided to return the relic to its place, fearing new victims. The priests of Philisteia associated this disease with rodents.

First registered global epidemic The plague began during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and manifested itself for two centuries from 541 to 750. The plague came to Constantinople through Mediterranean trade channels and spread throughout Byzantium and neighboring countries. In 544, up to 5 thousand people died in the capital per day, sometimes the mortality rate reached 10 thousand people. In total, about 10 million people died; in Constantinople itself, 40% of the inhabitants died. The plague spared neither the common people nor the kings - with the level of development of medicine and hygiene, nothing depended on the availability of money and lifestyle.

The plague continued to repeatedly “raid” cities. This was facilitated by the development of trade. In 1090, merchants brought the plague to Kyiv, where they sold 7 thousand coffins over several winter months. In total, about 10 thousand people died. During the plague epidemic in 1096-1270, Egypt lost more than a million inhabitants.

The largest and most famous plague pandemic was the Black Death of 1346-1353. The sources of the epidemic were China and India; the disease reached Europe with Mongol troops and trade caravans. At least 60 million people died, and in some regions the plague wiped out between a third and half of the population. Later epidemics were repeated in 1361 and 1369. Genetic studies of the remains of disease victims showed that the epidemic was caused by the same plague bacillus yersinia pestis - before this, there were disputes about which disease caused numerous deaths during that period. The mortality rate for bubonic plague reaches 95%.

Important role In addition to the economic factor, namely trade, the spread of the disease was influenced by the social one: wars, poverty and vagrancy, and the environmental one: droughts, rainstorms, and other weather misfortunes. Lack of food caused weakened immunity in people, and also served as a reason for the migration of rodents carrying fleas with bacteria. And, of course, hygiene in many countries was appalling (or simply non-existent) from the point of view of modern people.

In the Middle Ages, renunciation of life's pleasures and conscious punishment of the sinful body were common in monastic circles. This practice included refusing to wash: “Those who are healthy in body, and especially those who are young in age, should wash as little as possible,” said Saint Benedict. Masses of emptied pots flowed like a river along the city streets. Rats were so common, and they interacted so closely with humans, that at that time there was a recipe in case a rat bit or wet someone. Another reason for the spread of the disease was the use of the dead as biological weapons: during a siege, fortresses were bombarded with corpses, which made it possible to destroy entire cities. In China and Europe, corpses were dumped into bodies of water to infect settlements.

The third plague pandemic originated in the Chinese province of Yunnan in 1855. It lasted for several decades - by 1959, the number of victims worldwide had dropped to 200 people, but the disease continued to be recorded. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, outbreaks of plague occurred in the Russian Empire and the USSR, in the USA, India, South Africa, China, Japan, Ecuador, Venezuela and many other countries. In total, the disease claimed about 12 million lives during this period.

In 2015, scientists discovered traces of yersinia pestis in a flea from a 20-million-year-old piece of amber. The rod is similar to its descendants and is located in the same part of the flea as in modern distributors of the bacterium. Blood stains were found on the insect's proboscis and front limbs. That is, the plague spreader has supposedly existed for 20 million years, and has been transmitted in the same way for all this time.

Although we began to wash our hands more often and hugged infected rats less, the disease did not disappear. Every year, about 2.5 thousand people fall ill with the plague. Fortunately, the mortality rate has dropped from 95% to 7%. Individual cases are registered almost every year in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and Vietnam, Africa, the USA and Peru. In Russia, from 1979 to 2016, not a single plague disease was registered, although tens of thousands of people are at risk of infection in natural foci. The last case was registered on July 12, 2016 - a ten-year-old boy was admitted to the infectious diseases department with a temperature of 40 degrees.

Smallpox

The mortality rate from smallpox is up to 40%, but recovered people lose their vision completely or partially, and scars from ulcers remain on the skin. The disease is caused by two types of viruses, Variola major and Variola minor, and the mortality rate of the latter is 1-3%. Viruses are transmitted from person to person without the participation of animals, as is the case with the plague. A disease that causes many ulcers on the body - pustules - has been known since the beginning of our era.

The first epidemics were observed in Asia: in the 4th century in China, in the 6th century in Korea. In 737, smallpox caused the death of 30% of the Japanese population. The first evidence of smallpox's presence in the West is found in the Qur'an. In the 6th century, smallpox spread to Byzantium, and after that, Muslim Arabs, who conquered new lands, spread the virus from Spain to India. In the 15th century in Europe, almost every person suffered from smallpox. The Germans had a saying: “Few escape smallpox and love.” In 1527, smallpox, which came to America, claimed millions of lives; it mowed down entire tribes of aborigines (there is a version according to which the conquistadors deliberately threw blankets infected with smallpox to the Indians).

Smallpox was compared to the plague. Although the mortality rate for the latter was much higher, smallpox was more common - it was constantly present in people’s lives, “filling cemeteries with the dead, tormenting with constant fear all those who had not yet suffered from it.” At the beginning of the 19th century, 40 thousand people died annually in Prussia. Every eighth person who became ill in Europe died, and among children the chance of dying was one in three. Every year, until the 20th century, about one and a half million people died from smallpox.

Humanity began early to take care of methods of treating this terrible illness, other than dressing the patient in red clothes, praying for his health and covering him with protective amulets. The Persian scientist Az-Razi, who lived in the second half of the 9th - first half of the 10th century, in his work “On Smallpox and Measles” noted immunity to recurrent disease and mentioned the vaccination of mild human smallpox. The method consisted of inoculating a healthy person with pus from a ripened pustule of a smallpox patient.

The method came to Europe by 1718, brought by the wife of the British ambassador in Constantinople. After experiments on criminals and orphans, smallpox was inoculated into the family of the British king, and then into other people on a larger scale. Vaccination gave a 2% mortality rate, while smallpox killed tens of times more people. But there was also a problem: the vaccine itself sometimes caused epidemics. It later turned out that forty years of variolation caused 25 thousand more deaths than smallpox during the same period before the use of this method.

At the end of the 16th century, scientists discovered that cowpox, which appears as pustules in cows and horses, protects humans from contracting smallpox. Cavalry were much less likely to suffer from smallpox than infantry. Milkmaids died much less often from the disease. First public vaccination cowpox took place in 1796, then the eight-year-old boy James Phipps received immunity, and after a month and a half he failed to be vaccinated with smallpox. In 1800, soldiers and sailors began to be vaccinated without fail, and in 1807, Bavaria became the first country where vaccination was mandatory for the entire population.

To inoculate, material from one person's pockmark was transferred to another person. Lymph was carried along with syphilis and other diseases. As a result, they decided to use calf pockmarks as the starting material. In the 20th century, the vaccine began to be dried to make it resistant to temperature. Before this, children had to be used, too: to deliver smallpox from Spain to North and South America for vaccination, at the beginning of the 19th century, 22 children were used. Two were vaccinated with smallpox, and after the pustules appeared, the next two were infected.

The disease has not escaped Russian Empire, it has been exterminating people since 1610 in Siberia, and Peter II died from it. The first vaccination in the country was given to Catherine II in 1768, who decided to set an example for her subjects. Below is the family coat of arms of the nobleman Alexander Markov-Ospenny, who received nobility because material for grafting was taken from his hand. In 1815, a special smallpox vaccination committee was formed, which oversaw the compilation of a list of children and the training of specialists.

In the RSFSR, a decree on mandatory vaccinations was introduced for smallpox in 1919. Thanks to this decision, the number of cases decreased significantly over time. If in 1919 186 thousand patients were registered, then in 1925 - 25 thousand, in 1935 - a little more than 3 thousand. By 1936, smallpox was completely eradicated in the USSR.

Outbreaks of the disease were recorded later. Moscow artist Alexander Kokorekin brought the disease from India in December 1959 and “gave it” along with gifts to his mistress and wife. The artist himself died. During the outbreak, 19 people became infected from it, and another 23 people from them. The outbreak ended in death for three. To avoid an epidemic, the KGB tracked all of Kokorekin’s contacts and found his mistress. The hospital was quarantined, after which the population of Moscow began to be vaccinated against smallpox.

In the 20th century, up to 500 million people died from smallpox in America, Asia and Europe. The last time a smallpox infection was reported was on October 26, 1977 in Somalia. The World Health Organization announced that the disease had been defeated in 1980.

On this moment both plague and smallpox remained largely in test tubes. The incidence of the plague, which still threatens some regions, has dropped to 2.5 thousand people a year. Smallpox, transmitted from one person to another for thousands of years, was defeated more than thirty years ago. But the threat remains: due to the fact that vaccination against these diseases is extremely rare, they can easily be used as biological weapons, which people already did more than a thousand years ago.

Cholera

Cholera outbreaks occurred 7 times in less than 200 years, and typhus - during the First World War alone, 3.5 million people died from it in Russia and Poland.

Cholera is caused by motile bacteria - Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio cholerae. Vibrios reproduce in plankton in salty and fresh water. The mechanism of cholera infection is fecal-oral. The pathogen is excreted from the body through feces, urine or vomit, and enters the new body through the mouth - with dirty water or through unwashed hands. Epidemics are caused by mixing wastewater with drinking water and lack of disinfection.

The bacteria produce an exotoxin, which in the human body causes ions and water to leak out of the intestines, leading to diarrhea and dehydration. Some types of bacteria cause cholera, others cause cholera-like dysentery.

The disease leads to hypovolemic shock, a condition caused by a rapid decrease in blood volume due to loss of water, and to death.

Cholera has been known to mankind since the time of the “father of medicine” Hippocrates, who died between 377 and 356 BC. He described the disease long before the first pandemic, which began in 1816. All pandemics spread from the Ganges Valley. The spread was facilitated by heat, water pollution and mass gatherings of people near rivers.

The causative agent of cholera was isolated by Robert Koch in 1883. The founder of microbiology, during cholera outbreaks in Egypt and India, grew microbes on gelatin-coated glass plates from the feces of patients and the intestinal contents of the corpses of the dead, as well as from water. He was able to isolate microbes that looked like curved sticks, similar to a comma. Vibrios were called "Koch's Comma".

Scientists have identified seven cholera pandemics:

First pandemic, 1816-1824
Second pandemic, 1829-1851
Third pandemic, 1852-1860
Fourth pandemic, 1863-1875
Fifth pandemic, 1881-1896
Sixth pandemic, 1899-1923
Seventh pandemic, 1961-1975

A possible cause of the first cholera epidemic was abnormal weather, which caused a mutation of Vibrio cholerae. In April 1815, the Tambora volcano erupted in what is now Indonesia, a magnitude 7 disaster that claimed the lives of ten thousand island residents. Up to 50,000 people then died from the consequences, including starvation.

One of the consequences of the eruption was the “year without summer.” In March 1816 it was winter in Europe, there was a lot of rain and hail in April and May, and there were frosts in America in June and July. Germany was tormented by storms, and snow fell every month in Switzerland. A mutation of Vibrio cholerae, perhaps coupled with famine due to cold weather, contributed to the spread of cholera in 1817 throughout Asia. From the Ganges the disease reached Astrakhan. More than 30,000 people died in Bangkok.

The pandemic was stopped by the same factor that started it: the abnormal cold of 1823-1824. In total, the first pandemic lasted eight years, from 1816 to 1824.

The calm was short-lived. Just five years later, in 1829, a second pandemic broke out on the banks of the Ganges. It lasted for 20 years - until 1851. Colonial trade, improved transport infrastructure, and the movement of armies helped the disease spread throughout the world. Cholera reached Europe, the USA and Japan. And, of course, she came to Russia. The peak in our country occurred in 1830-1831. Cholera riots swept across Russia. Peasants, workers and soldiers refused to tolerate quarantine and high food prices and therefore killed officers, merchants and doctors.

In Russia, during the second cholera epidemic, 466,457 people fell ill, of whom 197,069 died. The spread was facilitated by the return of the Russian army from Asia after the wars with the Persians and Turks.

The third pandemic dates back to the period from 1852 to 1860. This time, more than a million people died in Russia alone.

In 1854, 616 people died from cholera in London. There were many problems with sewerage and water supply in this city, and the epidemic led to the fact that they began to think about them. Until the end of the 16th century, Londoners took water from wells and the Thames, and also for money from special tanks. Then, over the course of two hundred years, pumps were installed along the Thames, which began pumping water to several areas of the city. But in 1815, sewers were allowed to be drained into the same Thames. People washed, drank, and cooked food in water, which was then filled with their own waste - for seven whole years. The sewers, of which there were about 200,000 in London at the time, were not cleaned, leading to the “Great Stench” of 1858.

London physician John Snow discovered in 1854 that the disease was transmitted through contaminated water. Society did not pay attention to this news special attention. Snow had to prove her point to the authorities. First, he persuaded the handle of the water stand on Broad Street, where the outbreak was centered, to be removed. He then compiled a map of cholera cases, which showed the relationship between the locations of the disease and its sources. The largest number of deaths was recorded in the vicinity of this particular water intake. There was one exception: no one died in the monastery. The answer was simple - the monks drank exclusively beer own production. Five years later, a new sewer system scheme was adopted.

The seventh and last cholera pandemic began in 1961. It was caused by a more persistent environment cholera vibrio, called El Tor - after the name of the quarantine station where the mutated vibrio was discovered in 1905.

By 1970, El Tor cholera had spread to 39 countries. By 1975 it was observed in 30 countries. At the moment, the danger of cholera being imported from some countries has not gone away.

Highest speed The spread of infection is shown by the fact that in 1977, a cholera outbreak in the Middle East spread to eleven neighboring countries, including Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran, in just a month.

In 2016, cholera is not as bad as it was one hundred or two hundred years ago. Many more people have access to clean water, and sewage rarely goes into the same bodies of water that people drink from. Sewage treatment plants and water supply are on a completely different level, with several degrees of purification.

Although cholera outbreaks still occur in some countries. One of the most recent cases of a cholera epidemic began (and continues) in Haiti in 2010. In total, more than 800,000 people were infected. During peak periods, up to 200 people fell ill per day. The country is home to 9.8 million people, meaning cholera has affected almost 10% of the population. It is believed that the epidemic was started by Nepalese peacekeepers who brought cholera into one of the country's main rivers.

In October 2016, it was reported that Aden, Yemen's second largest city, had two hundred cases of cholera, with nine deaths. The disease spread through drinking water. The problem is exacerbated by famine and war. According to the latest data, cholera is suspected in 4,116 people throughout Yemen.

Typhus

Under the name “typhoid”, which translated from ancient Greek means “cloudness of consciousness”, several infectious diseases are hidden at once. They have one common denominator - they are accompanied by mental disorders against the background of fever and intoxication. Typhoid fever was identified as a separate disease in 1829, and relapsing fever in 1843. Before this, all such diseases had one name.

Typhus

In the United States, this fever is still common, with up to 650 cases of the disease reported annually. The spread is evidenced by the fact that between 1981 and 1996, the fever was found in every US state except Hawaii, Vermont, Maine and Alaska. Even today, when medicine is at a much higher level, the mortality rate is 5-8%. Before the invention of antibiotics, the number deaths reached 30%.

In 1908, Nikolai Fedorovich Gamaleya proved that the bacteria that causes typhus are transmitted by lice. Most often - clothes, which is confirmed by outbreaks in the cold season, periods of “lice”. Gamaleya substantiated the importance of disinfestation in order to combat typhus.

Bacteria enter the body through combs or other damage to the skin.
After a louse has bitten a person, the disease may not occur. But as soon as a person begins to itch, he rubs the lice’s intestinal secretions, which contain rickettsiae. After 10-14 days, after the incubation period, chills, fever, headache. After a few days, a pink rash appears. Patients experience disorientation, speech impairment, and temperature up to 40 °C. Mortality during an epidemic can be up to 50%.

In 1942, Alexey Vasilyevich Pshenichnov, a Soviet scientist in the field of microbiology and epidemiology, made a huge contribution to the methodology for the prevention and treatment of typhus and developed a vaccine against it. The difficulty in creating a vaccine was that rickettsia cannot be cultivated using conventional methods - the bacteria need living animal or human cells. A Soviet scientist has developed an original method of infecting blood-sucking insects. Thanks to quick start In several institutes for the production of this vaccine during the Great Patriotic War, the USSR managed to avoid an epidemic.

The time of the first typhus epidemic was determined in 2006, when the remains of people found in a mass grave under the Acropolis of Athens were examined. The Plague of Thucydides killed more than a third of the population of Athens in one year in 430 BC. Modern molecular genetic methods have made it possible to detect the DNA of the causative agent of typhus.

Typhus sometimes struck armies more effectively than a living enemy. The second major epidemic of this disease dates back to 1505-1530. The Italian doctor Fracastor observed her with the French troops besieging Naples. At that time, high mortality and morbidity rates of up to 50% were noted.

In the Patriotic War of 1812, Napoleon lost a third of his troops from typhus. Kutuzov's army lost up to 50% of its soldiers from this disease. The next epidemic in Russia was in 1917-1921, this time about three million people died.

Currently, antibiotics of the tetracycline group and chloramphenicol are used to treat typhus. Two vaccines are used to prevent the disease: the Vi-polysaccharide vaccine and the Ty21a vaccine, developed in the 1970s.

Typhoid fever

Typhoid fever is characterized by fever, intoxication, skin rashes and damage to the lymphatic system of the lower small intestine. It is caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi. Bacteria are transmitted through the nutritional, or fecal-oral, route. In 2000, 21.6 million people worldwide suffered from typhoid fever. The mortality rate was 1%. One of effective ways prevention typhoid fever- washing hands and dishes. As well as careful attention to drinking water.

Patients experience a rash - roseola, brachycardia and hypotension, constipation, an increase in the volume of the liver and spleen and, which is typical for all types of typhus, lethargy, delirium and hallucinations. Patients are hospitalized and given chloramphenicol and biseptol. In the most severe cases Ampicillin and gentamicin are used. In this case it is necessary drinking plenty of fluids, it is possible to add glucose-salt solutions. All patients take leukocyte production stimulants and angioprotectors.

Relapsing fever

After being bitten by a tick or louse, a carrier of the bacterium, a person begins the first attack, which is characterized by chills, followed by fever and headache with nausea. The patient's temperature rises, the skin dries out, and the pulse quickens. The liver and spleen enlarge, and jaundice may develop. Signs of heart damage, bronchitis and pneumonia are also noted.

The attack lasts from two to six days, and repeats after 4-8 days. If the disease after a louse bite is characterized by one or two attacks, then tick-borne relapsing fever causes four or more attacks, although they are milder clinical manifestations. Complications after the disease - myocarditis, eye damage, spleen abscesses, heart attacks, pneumonia, temporary paralysis.

For treatment, antibiotics are used - penicillin, chloramphenicol, chlortetracycline, as well as arsenic drugs - novarsenol.

Death from relapsing fever is rare, except in central Africa. Like other types of typhus, the disease depends on socio-economic factors - in particular, nutrition. Epidemics among population groups lacking access to qualified health care, can lead to a mortality rate of up to 80%.

During the First World War in Sudan, 100,000 people died from relapsing fever, that’s 10% of the country’s population.

Humanity was able to capture plague and smallpox in a test tube thanks to high level modern medicine, but even these diseases sometimes break through to people. And the threat of cholera and typhus exists even in developed countries, let alone developing ones, where another epidemic may break out at any moment.

Flu

Viral infection called influenza, one of the strains of which in 1918-1919 alone killed more than 50 million people out of an infected third of the world's population, and tuberculosis, due to which 2 million people die every year even now.

Flu - viral disease, and viruses are very good at mutating. In total, scientists have identified more than two thousand variants of the virus. Several different strains have been killing hundreds of thousands and even millions of people in the last hundred years alone. Every year, up to half a million people die from epidemics.

People of any age are susceptible to the flu, but it can be most dangerous for children and the elderly. Most often, the disease ends in death when the patient is over sixty-five years old. Epidemics begin mainly in the cold season, at temperatures from +5 to -5, when air humidity decreases, which creates favorable conditions for the virus to enter the human body through the respiratory tract.

After an incubation period that lasts up to three days, the disease begins. When during an illness you feel irritation in the nose, trachea or bronchi, this means that the virus has penetrated the cells of the ciliated epithelium and is now destroying them. The person coughs, sneezes and constantly blows his nose. The virus then enters the bloodstream and spreads throughout the body. The temperature rises, headaches and chills appear. After three to five days of illness, the patient recovers, but remains fatigued. At severe forms the flu can lead to cerebral edema and various complications, including the development of bacterial infections.

The largest pandemic of the “Spanish flu” during the First World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people, according to some estimates - up to hundreds of millions. It was the H1N1 strain, and it spread throughout the world. The name “Spanish Flu” was obtained only due to the fact that the epidemic, which all countries participating in the war were silent about, was only talked about in neutral Spain.

The H1N1 virus was a mutated virus common in wild birds. It came from just two mutations in the hemagglutinin molecule, the surface protein of the influenza virus that allows the virus to attach to a host cell.

In 1918, in Spain, 39% of the country's population became infected with influenza, including people in their twenties and forties, who were least at risk of contracting the disease. People's faces turned blue and pneumonia developed. Patients coughed up blood, which they could choke on. late stages. But most often the disease was asymptomatic. However, some people died the very next day after infection.

The virus has spread throughout the world. In eighteen months it claimed more lives than the First One itself. World War in four years. There were ten million soldiers killed in the war, twelve million civilians, and about fifty-five million wounded. The Spanish Flu killed between fifty and one hundred million people, and more than five hundred million people were infected. The epidemic was not localized to any one territory, but raged everywhere - in the USA, Europe, the RSFSR, China, Australia. The spread was facilitated by troop movements and developed transport infrastructure.

But why list the countries where the virus killed people? It's better to say where he didn't do it. He did not reach the island of Marajo in Brazil. In other places he sometimes mowed down all the doctors. People were buried without funeral services or coffins, burying them in mass graves.

The percentage of deaths from the country's population (not from those infected) ranged from 0.1% in Uruguay and Argentina to 23% in Samoa. In the RSFSR, with a population of 88 million, 3 million people died. But today that same “Spanish flu” could not achieve the same result. Over the past hundred years, humanity has accumulated antibodies to various strains of the influenza virus - so not only viruses can mutate.

The Spanish flu became the official version of the cause of death of the famous Russian silent film actress, Vera Kholodnaya. In February 1919, she fell into the snow from an overturned sleigh, and the next day she developed a fever. A few days later, on February 16, 1919, Vera Kholodnaya died. The actress's sister recalled:

“There was a real epidemic in Odessa, and the disease was very difficult, and Vera’s was somehow especially difficult. Professors Korovitsky and Uskov said that the “Spanish flu” progressed like pneumonic plague in her... Everything was done to save her. How she wanted to live!”

The Asian flu caused the second influenza pandemic of the 20th century. The H2N2 virus was discovered in the People's Republic of China in 1956. The pandemic has reached Singapore and the USA. In the United States, the death toll reached sixty-six thousand people. The virus has killed up to four million people worldwide. The developed vaccine helped stop the spread of the disease by 1958.

The Asian flu virus has mutated. In 1968-1969 it caused an epidemic hong kong flu: H3N2. Then the disease claimed the lives of a million people.

"Some guy will wake you up
And he will let you into a world where in the past there are wars, stench and cancer,
Where the Hong Kong flu was defeated.
Are you happy with everything ready, fool?”
Vladimir Vysotsky. "The Ballad of Going to Heaven"

You probably remember the recent hysteria about bird flu. It was the H5N1 strain - the “successor” of two previous causes of influenza pandemics. From February 2003 to February 2008, 361 people became infected with the disease, and 227 of them died. AND bird flu threatens Russia again. On November 23, 2016, it was reported that the first case of avian influenza was registered on farms in Kalmykia. The disease could have been carried by migratory birds. In the Netherlands, dead birds with confirmed influenza infection were discovered even earlier.

Another strain of influenza that can spread from animals to humans through a number of mutations is called swine flu. Outbreaks of this flu occurred in 1976, 1988, and 2007. The World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expressed serious concern about this strain in 2009, when the disease caused high mortality in Mexico. On April 29, the pandemic threat level was raised from 4 to 5 points out of 6 possible. By August 2009, more than 250 thousand cases of infection and 2,627 deaths had been reported worldwide. The infection has spread throughout the world.

On June 11, 2009, WHO declared the first pandemic in forty years - the swine flu pandemic.

There is an opinion that it is useless to get flu vaccinations, since this disease has too many strains. That is why you need to be vaccinated not against everything at once, but against potentially threatening this period virus time. For example, if the corresponding services have already detected swine flu and they predict its spread throughout the country - then it makes sense to think about vaccination. But when we have H1N1 every year, then perhaps it’s worth preparing for it in advance, just in case?

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a widespread disease in the world. To understand the scale: a third of the world's population is infected with it. Eight million people are infected with it every year. For two million of them, the disease will become fatal.

The causative agent of tuberculosis is Koch's bacillus. These are bacteria from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex group. The bacterium infects the lungs and sometimes affects other organs. It is transmitted very easily - through airborne droplets during a conversation, due to coughing or sneezing of an infected person. It occurs in an asymptomatic form, and then from a latent form it can become active. Patients cough, sometimes with blood, they develop fever, weakness, and lose weight.

At open form decays, or cavities, appear in the lungs. In the closed form, mycobacteria are not detected in the sputum, so patients are of little danger to others.

Tuberculosis was virtually incurable until the 20th century. At the same time, he was called “consumption” from the word “waste away,” although this disease was sometimes not tuberculosis. Consumption meant a number of diseases with wide range symptoms.

One of the victims of tuberculosis was Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, a doctor by profession. From the age of ten he felt “tightness in the sternum.” Since 1884 he had bleeding from his right lung. Researchers believe that his trip to Sakhalin played a big role in Chekhov’s death. The weakening of the body due to several thousand kilometers on horseback, in damp clothes and wet felt boots, caused an exacerbation of the disease. His wife recalled that on the night of July 1-2, 1904, at a resort in Germany, Anton Chekhov himself ordered for the first time to send for a doctor:

“For the first time in my life I asked to send for a doctor. Afterwards he ordered some champagne. Anton Pavlovich sat down and somehow significantly and loudly said to the doctor in German (he knew very little German): “Ich sterbe.” Then he repeated for the student or for me in Russian: “I’m dying.” Then he took the glass, turned his face to me, smiled his amazing smile, said: “I haven’t drunk champagne for a long time...”, calmly drank it all to the bottom, quietly lay down on his left side and soon fell silent forever.”

Nowadays they have learned to identify and treat tuberculosis in its early stages, but the disease continues to kill people. In 2006, 300 thousand people were registered at dispensaries in Russia, and 35 thousand people died from the disease.

In 2015, the mortality rate was 11 people per 100 thousand of the country’s population, that is, about 16 thousand people died from tuberculosis during the year, not including the combination of HIV + tuberculosis. In just one year, 130 thousand infected people were registered. The results compared to 2006 are encouraging. Every year, mortality from tuberculosis decreases by 10%.

Despite the fact that doctors are trying to fight tuberculosis and reduce mortality and morbidity, it remains important problem: drug resistance of Koch bacteria. Multidrug resistance is four times more common than ten years ago. That is, now every fifth patient simply does not respond to a whole range of the strongest drugs. Among them are 40% of those people who have already been treated before.

The problem of tuberculosis is most acute today in China, India and Russia. The World Health Organization plans to defeat the epidemic by 2050. If in the case of plague, smallpox and influenza we talked about certain epidemics and pandemics that broke out in different places, spread around the world and died out, then tuberculosis is a disease that has been constantly with us for decades and hundreds of years.

Tuberculosis is closely associated with social status sick. It is common in prisons and among the homeless. But you shouldn’t think that this will protect you, a person who works, for example, in an office, from illness. I already wrote above that Koch’s bacillus is transmitted by airborne droplets: a homeless person’s sneeze on the subway can land a manager or programmer in a hospital bed, risking being left without a lung. Much depends on immunity, on the strength of the body to resist infection. The body is weakened by poor and ill-conceived nutrition, lack of vitamins, and constant stress.

Vaccination against tuberculosis is practiced in Russia in the first 3-7 days of a newborn’s life using BCG, a vaccine prepared from a strain of weakened live bovine tuberculosis bacilli. It is grown in an artificial environment and has virtually no virulence for humans. Revaccination is done after seven years.

In the case of tuberculosis, there is no mass hysteria in the media. At the same time, the disease is widespread throughout the planet and causes a huge number of deaths. Perhaps by 2050, WHO will truly be able to boast of ending the decades-long epidemic. At the moment, only vaccination and strong immunity can save Koch from the bacillus.

If in the case of tuberculosis and influenza the percentage of deaths and the number of people infected has been decreasing over the years, then the mortality rate from malaria, according to scientists, will double in the next twenty years due to a decrease in susceptibility to drugs. Second terrible disease, which we are talking about today - leprosy. In medieval France, lepers were condemned to death, a funeral service was served over the living, they were thrown with a couple of shovels of earth into the cemetery, and after such a funeral they were taken to a special house - a leper colony.

Malaria

Malaria was first described around 2700 BC in the Chinese chronicle. But the first epidemic could have happened much earlier; from 8 to 15 thousand years ago, malaria could have caused a sharp decline in the number of people on Earth.

The patient's joints begin to ache, fever and chills, and convulsions appear. A person becomes a bait for mosquitoes - he begins to smell delicious to them. This is necessary for plasmodia to reach their beloved host again, since humans are only a means of distribution for them.

Children and people with HIV/AIDS are most at risk. The disease can be fatal for them.

Malaria seems like some distant African disease. Malaria mosquitoes themselves live in almost all climatic zones. But to risk infection, you need a large number of these insects and their rapid reproduction. Previously, malaria was called “swamp fever” precisely because it is common in places where there is no low temperatures, there are swamps and there is a lot of rainfall. The risk of infection is highest in the equatorial and subequatorial zones. In Russia, such mosquitoes are found throughout the European part of the country.

Malaria in Russia and the USSR was widespread until the 1950s. In order to cope with this disease in the resort area, swamps in Sochi were drained and reservoirs were oiled: they were covered with a layer of oil to destroy mosquito larvae.

Largest quantity cases in the history of the USSR were recorded in 1934-1935 - then 9 million people became infected. In 1962, malaria was defeated in the USSR. Isolated cases of infection were possible after this. During the war in Afghanistan in 1986-1990, the USSR recorded an increase in the number of infected people - 1314 cases.

Malaria affects 97 countries. Although nearly half the world's population - 3.2 billion people - were at risk of contracting malaria in 2015, the majority of cases occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. This is where 88% of cases and 90% of deaths from malaria occur.

In 2015, 214 million people became infected with malaria, and 438,000 of them died. Bill Gates and British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in January 2016 promised to give $4.3 billion to fight the disease. This money is planned to be spent on studying the disease and finding cures.

American Indians hundreds of years ago used cinchona bark as an antipyretic. The Spanish naturalist Bernabe Cobo brought it to Europe in 1632. After the wife of the Viceroy of Peru was cured of malaria, the wonderful properties of the medicine became known throughout the country, then the bark was transported to Spain and Italy, and it began to be used throughout Europe. It took almost two hundred years for quinine to be isolated directly from the bark, which was used in powder form. It is still used to treat the disease.

For decades (or even hundreds) people have been trying to create a vaccine against malaria. Unfortunately, vaccines still do not have a 100% guarantee against the disease. In July 2015, the Moskirix vaccine was approved in Europe, which was tested on 15 thousand children. The effectiveness of this vaccine is up to 40% when administered four times from 0 to 20 months. The use of the vaccine will begin in 2017.

In October 2015, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Youyou Tu for her discoveries in the fight against malaria. The scientist extracted artemisinin, an extract from the herb Artemisia annua, the use of which significantly reduces mortality from malaria. Interestingly, she spied the recipe from the alchemist Ge Hong in the book “Prescriptions for emergency care» 340 AD. He advised squeezing the juice of wormwood leaves into large quantities cold water. Yuyu Tuu achieved stable results precisely in the case of cold extraction.

In 2015, scientists at the University of California created genetically modified mosquitoes that could quickly introduce a malaria-blocking gene into a population of regular mosquitoes. In addition, after the gene is introduced, the eyes of mosquitoes begin to fluoresce, which increases the chance of their detection in the dark.

Leprosy

Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, is a chronic granulomatosis: it affects the human skin, peripheral nervous system, eyes, respiratory tract, testicles, hands and feet. The outdated name for this disease is leprosy, it was mentioned in the Bible, was known in Ancient India and was widespread in Medieval Europe. It is so widespread that at the beginning of the 13th century in Europe there were 19 thousand leper colonies, special houses for lepers.

In 503, a decree was issued in France obliging all leprosy patients to live in leper colonies. A person with such a diagnosis was taken to church in a coffin, a funeral service was held, carried in the same coffin to the cemetery and lowered into the grave there. Then they threw down several shovels of earth, saying the words “You are not alive, you are dead to all of us.” Then the person was taken to the leper colony. A person could go out for a walk, but only by wearing a gray cloak with a hood and a bell around his neck to warn others about the approach of the “dead man.”

The appearance of the word “infirmary” is associated with the disease. Lepers were accepted into the knighthood of the Order of St. Lazarus. And they also took care of other patients. The order was located on the island of Lazaretto in Italy.

Until the 16th century, there was a leprosy epidemic in Europe, but the number of patients, for a reason unknown to science, decreased. Scientists in 2013 restored the DNA of bacteria from the year 1300, removing it from the teeth of people who died at that time in leper colonies. It turned out that in seven hundred years the bacterium has hardly changed. This suggests that people have simply developed relative immunity to the disease.

In 1873, the Norwegian physician Gerhard Hansen isolated the first bacterium that causes leprosy, Mycobacterium leprae. Mycobacterium lepromatosis was isolated in 2008; these bacteria are common in Mexico and the Caribbean. Until recently, it was believed that only humans suffered from leprosy. But it turns out that armadillos and squirrels can transmit the disease to us. Moreover, squirrels themselves suffer from leprosy - they develop ulcers and growths on their heads and paws. Sick animals were discovered in the UK in 2016.

Incubation period The disease can last 5 years, and symptoms in a person may not appear until 20 years after infection. Doctors distinguish three types of disease: lepromatous, tuberculoid and borderline.

With lepromatous, bumps or nodes up to the size of a pea appear on the skin, which can merge into large formations. Then ulcers open on these tubercles, filled with a large number of bacteria that cause the disease. These ulcers eventually affect not only the skin, but also reach the joints and bones of a person, after which the limbs can be amputated.

The tuberculoid type is characterized by damage only to the skin and peripheral nervous system. The perception of temperature and touch are impaired.

An unidentifiable type of leprosy can progress to any of the previous types. It can cause damage to the nervous system and deformation of the feet and hands.

Leprosy is spread through droplets from the nose and mouth through frequent contact with untreated people. In other words, shouts of “unclean, unclean” and a bell around the neck of the sick were too powerful a means of prevention. Today it is known that leprosy is not transmitted by touching a person and does not always lead to death. Previously, it was incurable and actually led to inevitable disability. It's a matter of means and methods: bloodletting against leprosy is not the best method of treatment, just like cleansing the stomach.

A person may not get sick at all even with too close contact with infected flesh. The Norwegian doctor Daniel Cornelius Danielsen experimented on himself: he injected the blood of a leprosy patient, rubbed the pus of patients into scratches on his skin, and injected pieces of a leprosy tubercle from the patient under his skin. But he never got sick. Now scientists have suggested that the disease also depends on the DNA of a particular person.

A breakthrough in treatment came in the 1940s with the development of the anti-leprosy drug dapsone. The drug has an antibacterial effect not only against Mycobacterium leprae, but also kills Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The disease is closely related to social status. As of 2000, the World Health Organization named 91 countries with endemic leprosy. 70% of leprosy cases occur in India, Burma and Nepal. At risk are those people who have weakened immune systems, who drink contaminated water, eat little and live below the poverty line.

The number of patients has decreased over time, although this figure does not always decrease on a yearly basis. In 1999, 640 thousand new cases of infection were recorded worldwide, in 2000 - 738 thousand, and in 2001 - 775 thousand. But in 2015, several times fewer people fell ill - 211 thousand.

In Russia in 2007 there were 600 patients with leprosy, of which only 35% were hospitalized, and the rest were on outpatient treatment and under supervision. There were 16 leper colonies in the USSR, and four of them have survived in Russia. Patients can go to their relatives, but remain under observation. At the Tersky leper colony in the Stavropol Territory, some patients live for about 70 years. And they no longer die from the disease itself, but from old age.

As the World Health Organization notes, over 20 years, more than 16 million patients with leprosy have been cured. This disease has been defeated almost all over the world. Fortunately, the causative bacteria has not changed much and is not resistant to drugs. The most important thing is to diagnose the disease as early as possible and begin its treatment. People with weak immune systems and poor living conditions are still at risk.

The world regularly experiences outbreaks of plague, cholera, Ebola and various new types of diseases like MERS. In Madagascar, for example, plague epidemics occur almost every year, claiming dozens of lives. The 2010 cholera epidemic in Haiti killed 4,500 people. The latest Ebola epidemic is responsible for more than 11 thousand lives. The current MERS epidemic in South Korea has already claimed the lives of nine people.

Middle East coronavirus outbreak in South Korea respiratory syndrome(MERS) is the largest outbreak of this disease outside the Middle East. There are 108 known cases of infection and nine deaths. More than 2.5 thousand people were quarantined, and more than 2 thousand schools were closed.

MERS was first discovered in Saudi Arabia. Children and the elderly are at risk - they usually suffer from weakened immunity. One of the victims of the virus was an 80-year-old man. Among the sick are teenagers.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MERS affects respiratory system- lungs and respiratory tract. Patients suffer from high fever and cough. Then it becomes difficult for them to breathe. In some cases, MERS leads to diarrhea and nausea. The disease can lead to severe pneumonia and kidney failure. On average, every third or fourth patient out of ten die. However, the disease can occur in soft form or asymptomatic.

The virus was first discovered in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. However, it later became known that a resident of Jordan had previously suffered from the virus. MERS was brought to South Korea by a local resident who returned from the Middle East. writes The Wall Street Journal. His illness began with a slight cough.

Most likely, the virus is transmitted through the secretions of sick people, for example, during coughing. But so far the routes of transmission of infection are unknown. The disease is transmitted mainly through fairly close contact, for example, if you live with a sick person. Hospitals are especially vulnerable - you can easily get infected here.

This is far from the only epidemic that has occurred in recent years. The most famous epidemic was the Ebola outbreak, but over the past few years humanity has also suffered from outbreaks of plague, cholera, antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis and other diseases.

Ebola fever

Last year, the world was hit by one of the largest outbreaks of Ebola. The press has stopped actively discussing the epidemic, but it continues: in Africa, people are still getting sick with fever. Outbreaks of fever occur almost annually, but rarely spread outside of Africa. True, this time the sick people were among residents of Europe and the USA.

According to the World Health Organization, as of June 8 this year, this outbreak has killed more than 11 thousand people.

According to many experts and politicians, the latest Ebola outbreak has shown that the global health system is simply not ready for a global pandemic. Ebola fever turned out to be not so contagious: the virus is not transmitted through the air. If a new, more contagious disease emerges, it will be nearly impossible to contain.

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Throughout their existence, people have been repeatedly subjected to various diseases, which developed into large-scale forms and turned into epidemics. Nothing has ruined people more than microbes that harm the human body. Outbreaks of epidemics have claimed the lives of millions of people, and their threat has not lost its relevance today.

According to WHO statistics, 10 diseases have been defeated throughout history, but some diseases and their outbreaks still exist today. In terms of the number of epidemic victims, Smallpox ranks first, followed by influenza, plague, malaria and tuberculosis. An unlimited number of sick people is considered a sign of an epidemic outbreak if even 5% of people are sick in a limited area. And if the disease has spread beyond its borders, then it is already considered a pandemic.

Smallpox

In first place is the disease Smallpox. Smallpox, formerly known as Smallpox, is a viral infectious disease. Death statistics - 300 million people throughout the history of mankind. Smallpox affects only humans and is highly contagious. This disease does not occur individually, but only in outbreaks of epidemics.

The initial symptoms of smallpox are high fever, cough, pain all over the body, later a rash appears all over the body, pulmonary edema and even death.

The terrible disease has its roots in ancient India; the first outbreak occurred many thousands of years ago. In Russia, the first epidemic was recorded in the 17th century in Siberia. Even Peter II died from this terrible disease.

In Russia, forced vaccination of people began in 1936, thereby marking the beginning of the end of the epidemic. But the outbreak repeated in 1959; the famous artist Alexei Kakareikin brought the disease with him during a trip to India. Then they even forgot about this disease.

Influenza is the second most common cause of death. This infectious disease affects the respiratory tract. WITH frequent intervals is in the nature of an epidemic. IN modern world There are more than 2,500 strains of the influenza virus.

Flu symptoms most often include fever, body aches, cough and lethargy. Also, some types of influenza cause complications in the form of pneumonia and even meningitis, even death. The virus is capable of mutating. In general, 3 types of influenza virus have been discovered: A, B and C.

The first outbreak of an influenza epidemic was recorded in 1580. The second, known as the “Spanish Flu,” which occurred in 1918, was characterized by lightning speed and a high number of deaths.

For all time, according to statistics, deaths from the influenza virus are about 200 million people.

Plague is one of the most terrible infectious diseases that has claimed lives from 75 to 200 million people throughout the history of mankind. This disease is characterized by its contagiousness and high number of deaths. During infection, plague bacteria affect the lymph nodes, lungs and other organs until the development of sepsis.

There have been 3 major major plague outbreaks throughout history. Then people could not even imagine that the original carriers of these bacteria were fleas that lived on the bodies of rats, and later the plague virus mutated and spread through the air from person to person. The plague virus was even used as a biological weapon; it was first used by Zhdoni Bek, a descendant of Genghis Khan, during the capture of Caffa.

The plague vaccine was first invented by the Odessa epidemiologist Vladimir Khavkin, which was tested on herself by the Soviet bacteriologist Magdalina Petrovna Pokrovskaya. The beginning of the end of the plague occurred in 1947 after Soviet doctors used a vaccine called Streptomycin, developed at the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene of the Red Army.

Malaria

Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease. Infection occurs through the bites of malaria mosquitoes. General symptoms characteristic of this disease: fever, enlarged spleen and liver, chills and anemia.

People die every year from outbreaks of this disease. about 2 million people. The first appearances were recorded several centuries ago, and the first medicine was created in China in 340. However, a very large percentage of deaths occur due to this terrible disease.

In the twentieth century, epidemics of syphilis were overcome by infecting a patient with malaria; the high temperature during infection with this disease completely killed the syphilis bacteria.

There are several types of malaria: tropical, four-day and three-day (ovale malaria). Currently, trials are underway to develop a vaccine against malaria. Last year, in the United States, scientists finally created a drug against malaria and tested it on mice; now the drug is being prepared for testing on humans.

A widespread disease, it affects not only people, but also animals. Terrible disease, affecting the lungs and transmitted through the air. The first recorded case was in 1907.

Symptoms characteristic of tuberculosis are cough with sputum, hemoptysis, later weakness of the body, sweating, and fever are noted.

Annually 3 million people dies from complications after tuberculosis. A third of the world's population is infected, of which 300 thousand people are in Russia every year and 35 thousand people die.

Over the years, many vaccines have been created and a huge number of diseases have been completely defeated, and this is excellent progress in the history of mankind. There are still many mysteries and secrets for people about diseases for which vaccines have not yet been invented, for example, such as AIDS, cancer and many others. If medicine had not progressed, people would still die from syphilis and plague. Thanks to the intelligence and experience of scientists and doctors, humanity has not ceased to exist.

When science fiction films or books depict the end of the world, one of its signs is necessarily mass epidemic or pandemic. There have been so many cases in the history of mankind when diseases took millions of lives that people began to believe that the end of the world was really near. Cholera, plague, smallpox, AIDS - unfortunately, it cannot be said that these epidemics are a thing of the distant past and no longer pose a danger. In our review - the deadliest of all epidemics.

The reason for the depopulation of Europeans in the 14th century was Bubonic plague, or "black death". It claimed the lives of about 75 million people, a third of the population of Europe. The plague devastated entire cities. Its carriers were rat fleas and ticks. Doctors had to work at risk own life. They wore special uniforms made of fabric impregnated with wax and masks with long beaks, which contained aromatic substances that supposedly prevented infection and masked the smell of decomposing bodies. Up to the 19th century. This terrible disease was practically untreatable.

One of the most dangerous killers in human history was smallpox. In the 8th century. Smallpox killed 30% of Japan's population. This disease led to the depopulation of North and South America as a result of European colonization and only in the twentieth century. claimed between 300 and 500 million lives. Since 1950, vaccinations against smallpox have begun throughout the world.

A viral disease that continues to claim lives today is measles. It destroyed the Inca civilization and left vast areas of Central and South America deserted. The total death toll from measles is more than 200 million.

The real scourge of dirty cities and countries is cholera. In the 19th century it claimed 15 million lives. The main vector of the disease was water contaminated with feces. With proper sanitation and disinfection, the disease can be controlled.

Between 1918 and 1920 The H1N1 influenza virus epidemic has swept the entire globe. In just 2 months, the Spanish Flu claimed 20 million lives, and the total death toll was between 50 and 100 million people worldwide. The pandemic was global in nature, even infecting people on islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Malaria has been a direct threat to humans since ancient times - Pharaoh Tutankhamun died from it. Although it is now limited to tropical and subtropical regions of the planet, it was once common in Europe and North America. Every year, between 300 and 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide. The infection is transmitted through mosquito bites.

AIDS is called the plague of the twentieth century

Many of these tragic events were documented by photographers, such as the Spanish Flu outbreak and others.