World epidemics. Epidemics of recent years: what disease will destroy humanity

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- light and Airways. 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. IN South Korea MERS was brought in by a local resident returning 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. Most famous epidemic There was an outbreak of Ebola, but also over the past few years, humanity has 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 World Organization health care, as of June 8 this year, this outbreak of the disease 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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An epidemic is a massive spread in space and time of an infectious disease, the level of which is several times higher than the statistical indicator recorded in the affected area. Many people become victims of the disease; on a large scale, the effect of the infection has no boundaries and covers both small areas and entire countries. Each outbreak of the disease can be fundamentally different from previous ones and is accompanied by symptoms depending on a number of factors. This is the climate weather, atmospheric pressure, geographical location, social and hygienic conditions. A virus epidemic is characterized by a continuous process of transmission of the infectious agent from one person to another, which entails a continuous chain of sequentially developing infectious conditions.

Diseases developing into epidemics

The most dangerous diseases that take the form of an epidemic are:

• Plague.
• Cholera.
• Flu.
• Anthrax.
• Ebola fever.

Black death - plague

Plague (otherwise known as the “Black Death”) is a terrible disease that destroyed entire cities and wiped out villages from the face of the Earth. The first mention of the disease was recorded in the 6th century: it shrouded the lands of the Eastern Roman Empire in a dark cloud, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and their ruler Justinian. Coming from Egypt and spreading in the western and eastern directions- along the coast of Africa towards Alexandria and through Syria and Palestine into the possessions of Western Asia - the plague from 532 to 580 struck many countries. The “Black Death” made its way along trade routes, along sea coasts, and unceremoniously sneaked deep into the continents.

It reached its apogee by penetrating Greece and Turkey in 541-542, and then into the territory of present-day Italy, France and Germany. At that time, the population of the Eastern Roman Empire had been reduced by half. Every breath, slight fever, the slightest ailment posed a danger and did not guarantee a person’s awakening in the morning.

The plague epidemic repeated its second terrible campaign in the 14th century, striking all European states. The disease's five-century reign claimed the lives of approximately 40 million people. The reasons for the unhindered spread of infection were the lack of basic hygiene skills, dirt and general poverty. Both doctors and the drugs they prescribed were powerless in the face of the disease. There was a catastrophic lack of territory for burying dead bodies, so they dug huge pits that were filled with hundreds of corpses. How many strong men, attractive women, the lovely babies were mowed down by a merciless death, breaking the chains of hundreds of generations.

After unsuccessful attempts, doctors realized that they needed to isolate sick people from healthy people. It was then that quarantine was invented, which became the first barrier to the fight against infection.

Were under construction special houses, in which patients were kept for 40 days under strict ban going outside. The arrival was also ordered to stand in the roadstead for 40 days without leaving the port.

The third wave of the disease epidemic swept through China at the end of the 19th century, killing approximately 174 thousand people in 6 months. In 1896, India was struck, losing more than 12 million people during that terrible period. Next came South Africa, South and North America. The carriers of the Chinese plague, which was bubonic in nature, were ship and port rats. At the insistence of quarantine doctors, metal disks were supplied to the shore to prevent the mass migration of rodents to the shore.

The terrible disease has not spared Russia either. In the XIII-XIV centuries, the cities of Glukhov and Belozersk died out completely; in Smolensk, 5 residents managed to escape. Two terrible years in the Pskov and Novgorod provinces claimed the lives of 250 thousand people.

Although the incidence of the plague began to decline sharply in the 30s of the last century, it periodically reminds itself. From 1989 to 2003, 38 thousand cases of plague were recorded in the countries of America, Asia, and Africa. In 8 countries (China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Republic of Tanzania, Madagascar, Peru, USA), the epidemic is an annual outbreak that recurs with persistent frequency.

Signs of plague infection

Symptoms:

• General serious condition.
• Development inflammatory process in the lungs, lymph nodes and other organs.
• High temperature - up to 39-40 C 0.
• Strong headache.
• Frequent nausea and vomiting.
• Dizziness.
• Insomnia.
• Hallucinations.

Forms of plague

In addition to the above symptoms, in the bubonic cutaneous form of the disease, a red spot appears at the site of virus penetration, turning into a vesicle filled with purulent-bloody contents.

The pustule (bubble) soon bursts, forming an ulcer. The inflammatory process develops with the formation of buboes in lymph nodes, located close to the place of penetration of plague microbes.

The pulmonary form of the disease is characterized by inflammation of the lungs (plague pneumonia), accompanied by a feeling of lack of air, coughing, and sputum mixed with blood.

The intestinal stage is accompanied by profuse diarrhea, often mixed with mucus and blood in the stool.

The septic type of plague is accompanied by significant hemorrhages in skin and mucous membranes. It is difficult and often fatal, manifested by general intoxication body and lesions internal organs on days 2 - 3 (with pulmonary form) and 5 - 6 days (with the bubonic form). If left untreated, the mortality rate is 99.9%.

Treatment

Treatment is carried out exclusively in special hospitals. If this disease is suspected, isolation of the patient, disinfection, disinfestation and deratization of the premises and all things with which the patient had contact is extremely necessary. On locality where the disease was discovered, quarantine is imposed, active vaccination and emergency chemoprophylaxis are carried out.

Flu - "Italian fever"

The diagnosis “influenza” has long become common among the population. High temperature, sore throat, runny nose - all this is not considered abnormally terrible and can be treated with medications and bed rest. It was completely different a hundred years ago, when about 40 million lives were lost to this disease.

Influenza was first mentioned during the time of the great ancient physician Hippocrates. Fever in patients, headaches and muscle pain, as well as high infectiousness, knocked hundreds of people off their feet in a short period, developing into epidemics, the largest of which covered entire countries and continents.

In the Middle Ages, outbreaks of influenza infection were not uncommon and were called “Italian fever”, as patients mistakenly believed that the source of infection was sunny Italy. Treatment consisting of drink plenty of fluids, infusions medicinal herbs And bee honey, helped little, and the doctors could not come up with anything else to save the patients. And among the people, the flu epidemic was considered God’s punishment for sins committed, and people fervently prayed to the Almighty in the hope that the disease would bypass their homes.

Until the 16th century, an epidemic was an infection without a name, since doctors could not find out the cause of its occurrence. According to one hypothesis, it arose as a result of the alignment of celestial bodies in a special sequence. This gave it its original name - “influenza”, which translated from Italian means “impact, influence”. The second hypothesis is less poetic. The pattern of occurrence of an infectious disease was identified with the onset of the winter months, determining the connection of the disease with the resulting hypothermia.

The modern name “flu” arose three centuries later, and translated from French and German it means “to seize,” defining the suddenness of its appearance: a person is caught in the arms of a contagious infection in almost a few hours.

There is a valid version that the breaks between epidemics are spent in the bodies of birds and animals. Doctors all over the planet are in a tense state and in constant readiness for the next wave of the influenza epidemic, which each time visits humanity in a modified state.

Virus of our time - Ebola

Currently, humanity is faced with a new disease - Ebola fever, against which no means of combat have yet been invented, since the new epidemic is a completely unfamiliar type of disease. Starting in February 2014 in Guinea, the infection spread to Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali, the United States and Spain.

An epidemic caused by unsanitary conditions, poor hygiene, and religious beliefs, boldly overcomes kilometers of territory. The rapid spread of a contagious infection plays into the hands of the traditions of the local population, in which they kiss the deceased when saying goodbye, wash dead body, are buried near water, which leads to a continuous chain of infection of other people.

Preventive measures to prevent epidemics

Any outbreak of disease epidemic does not just happen and is the result of the relationship between man and nature.

Therefore, in order to avoid the rapid spread of new infections around the world, the following preventive measures are required:

• cleaning of the territory, sewerage, water supply;
• improving the health culture of the population;
• compliance ;
• correct processing and food storage;
• restriction of social activity of bacilli carriers.

One of the main themes of 2014 was the extremely dangerous fever Ebola. Despite the rapid spread of the disease around the world, by the end of the year the panic subsided, and some countries declared that they had coped with the epidemic. Humanity has already been tested for strength by various viruses and bacteria more than a dozen times, and we have successfully dealt with even their most terrible representatives. About the bloodiest wars against infections and victories over them - in our digest.

Plague

The name of this disease has become a household word for all infections that have led to pandemics. The causative agent of the disease is the plague bacillus, and its transmission to humans occurs from fleas or rodents.

The plague was first discussed in 540 AD, and over the next hundred years the epidemic killed more than 150 million people around the globe. To understand the global scale of the disaster, it is worth knowing that the entire population of the world at that time did not exceed 400-450 million. The first meeting of mankind with this disease went down in history as the “Justinian Plague”, named after the ruling Byzantine Emperor Justinian I at that time.

It was Soviet scientists who managed to bring the disease to its knees. In 1947, during an outbreak of plague in Manchuria, they used streptomycin for the first time in the world. Thanks to them, even the most hopeless patients recovered. Yes, isolated outbreaks of plague still occur, but experts have established that correct treatment plague treatment should be carried out using antibiotics, sulfonamides and medicinal anti-plague serum. Then mortality from infection occurs only in 5-10 percent of cases.

For the second time, the plague, which received the sonorous name “Black Death,” appeared in the 14th century. As befits a real pandemic, it raged almost simultaneously across Africa and Eurasia. At the same time, the disease received another name - " Bubonic plague", buboes are abscesses and tumors that arose in sick people. The place where the “zero patient” appeared was the Gobi Desert, and from here, together with the hordes of the Golden Horde, the disease spread throughout the globe within 10 years. Like the first time, the consequences of the infection were terrible: Europe was devastated, having lost, according to some estimates, up to 40 percent of the population, several hundred cities and villages died out in China and India, the number of dead in Africa cannot be counted at all.

The third acquaintance of a person with the plague bacillus occurred in 1855 in China. The mountain valleys of Yunnan suffered alone from the infection for four decades, but by the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to traders and armies, the infection had spread to the rest of the world. In general, the third “wave” was not so destructive, although it noticeably battered China and India, killing about 20 million people in total.

Cholera

Cholera as deadly intestinal infection has been known to mankind since ancient times. It is mentioned by Hippocrates and Celsus. The disease is characterized quick loss body fluids, dehydration and subsequent death. But until the 19th century, the disease never behaved aggressively and was always limited to isolated outbreaks at the sites of earthquakes and floods.

In 1816, the first cholera pandemic began in what is now Bangladesh. Its victims were thousands of British soldiers, millions of Indians and more than a hundred thousand people on the island of Java. By the middle of the century, the disease reached Russia; this moment is described in history thanks to numerous “cholera riots.” Then the infection spread to Germany, France, and Great Britain, leaving behind up to 60 thousand corpses in each country. Cholera then moved overseas and killed more than 250 thousand people in the United States and Canada.

By 1860, the infection, which had almost disappeared, reappeared. In Russia, a million people die from it, almost one and a half million die throughout Europe. Cholera would kill another 10 million people before 1923. The last time a cholera pandemic was declared was in 1962, although isolated cases and focal outbreaks of the disease are still recorded.

Treatment of cholera consists of combating dehydration and loss of vital elements by the body, as well as using the simplest antibiotics, to which the virus has not developed resistance.

Smallpox

Smallpox, like cholera, has been known to doctors since ancient times. It is a highly contagious infection with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent. And if you do manage to survive, you will most likely go blind and be covered in scars from ulcers for life.

According to chronicles, the first smallpox epidemics were recorded in Asia from the 4th to the 8th centuries AD. Lack of knowledge about the disease has led to disastrous consequences: the population of China and Korea decreased by a quarter, Japan by 40 percent. In the 17th-18th centuries, mortality from smallpox in Europe and Russia amounted to up to 1.5 million people per year. The number of those who recovered but remained disabled reached 20 million.

It was at this time that doctors and scientists from several countries began to pay attention to a strange pattern: people who are in direct contact with animals - shepherds, milkmaids, cavalrymen, suffer from natural or “black” smallpox much less often than others. It was later discovered that infection with cowpox makes a person almost completely immune to the natural disease. Mass vaccinations have begun, but positive effect weakened over time, revaccination was required, which people often ignored, believing that they had exposed themselves to an unnecessary risk the first time. As a result, by 1875, about a million people were dying annually in Europe.

In 1928, due to widespread vaccinations smallpox no longer threatens humanity. However, before that, in the 20th century, it managed to destroy up to 400 million people. It was Soviet scientists who in 1958 offered the world 25 million smallpox vaccine to fight the disease. So far, smallpox is considered eradicated, and the only two copies of this virus are stored in the Russian state scientific center Virology and Biotechnology "Vector" and the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Interestingly, smallpox is most likely the most dangerous disease for kings and emperors. IN different time Queen Mary II of England, the Aztec leader Cuitlauac, King Louis XV of France and three Japanese emperors died from it.

Spanish flu or "Spanish flu"

The most widespread and deadly influenza pandemic in human history. The flu got its name from the place where it first appeared - Spain, where by May 1918 about 9 million people were already sick with it. First World War and the associated movements of millions of armies contributed to the almost instantaneous spread of the virus throughout the earth: from Alaska and Greenland to Australia and the Amazon jungle. Technological progress, so praised by scientists of that time, also did its job: trains, ships and airships replicated the virus so quickly that in the first 30 weeks of its existence, the virus killed more than 35 million people worldwide. In total, about 600 million, or almost a third of the world's population, suffered from the Spanish flu, and according to various sources, from 60 to 100 million people died.

About 3 million people died in Russia, including such prominent people as silent film legend Vera Kholodnaya, revolutionary Yakov Sverdlov, and engineer Leonid Kapitsa. Around the world, the following were the victims of influenza: famous personalities, like the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, philosopher and sociologist Max Weber. Deaths on the streets in major cities the world were so ordinary that passers-by did not even turn around, and the number of mourning and funeral processions resembled a terrible and frightening parade. There is a well-known story about one undertaker from New York who earned 150 thousand dollars in one month! True, he did not have time to use this amount - he died of the flu.

In 2009, the Spanish flu reappeared, albeit more mild form. The H1N1 strain, known at the beginning of the twentieth century as the “Spanish flu,” has now changed its name to “ swine flu", and is treated like other types of flu.

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 cause of the depopulation of Europeans in the 14th century was the 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 to their own lives. 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 practically resistant to treatment.

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 Northern 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 kill human lives and in our day, 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 total number deaths - 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.

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 harmful to the human body microbes 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, early name – Black smallpox – is viral infection. Statistics deaths – 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.

Initial symptoms of smallpox: heat, cough, pain all over the body, later a rash appears all over the body, pulmonary edema, 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 frequency it has the character of an epidemic. IN modern world There are more than 2,500 strains of the influenza virus.

The most common symptoms of influenza are: elevated temperature, body pain, 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 big amount fatalities. 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

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. A terrible disease that affects the lungs and is 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 population globe 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 completely defeated great amount diseases 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.