The worst epidemic in the world. BJD. General information about epidemics. Causes of epidemic outbreaks. Infectious agents

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.

An outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus has occurred in South Korea, making it the largest outbreak of the 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 the respiratory system - the lungs 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 be mild 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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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. These are climate, weather conditions, 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 western and eastern directions - along the coast of Africa towards Alexandria and through Syria and Palestine into the possessions of Western Asia - the plague struck many countries from 532 to 580. 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, and lovely children were mowed down by 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.

Special houses were built in which patients were kept for 40 days under a strict ban on 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 of the 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. An inflammatory process develops with the formation of buboes in the lymph nodes located close to the site of penetration of the 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 the skin and mucous membranes. It is difficult and often fatal, manifested by general intoxication of the body and damage to internal organs on days 2–3 (with the pulmonary form) and days 5–6 (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. The locality where the disease was discovered is quarantined, 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 plenty of drinking, infusions of medicinal herbs and bee honey, helped little, and 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.

The epidemic, the causes of which are unsanitary conditions, poor hygiene, and religious beliefs, boldly covers kilometers of territory. The rapid spread of a contagious infection is supported by the traditions of the local population, in which they kiss the dead person goodbye, wash the dead body, and bury it 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 ;
• proper processing and storage of products;
• restriction of social activity of bacilli carriers.

When studying history, we pay almost no attention to pandemics, and yet some of them have claimed more lives and influenced history more than the longest and most destructive wars. According to some reports, during the year and a half of the Spanish flu, no fewer people died than during the entire Second World War, and numerous outbreaks of plague prepared people’s minds for the overthrow of absolutism and the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age. The lessons of pandemics have cost humanity too much, and, alas, even now, in the era of advanced medicine, we continue to pay these bills.

Children's writer Elizaveta Nikolaevna Vodovozova was born in 1844 - 2 years before the third cholera pandemic (the deadliest of all) appeared in Russia. The epidemic ended only in the early 1860s, during which time it claimed more than a million lives in Russia and one and a half million in Europe and America. Elizaveta Nikolaevna recalls that in just a month, cholera took 7 members of her family. Later, she explained such a high mortality rate by the fact that household members did not follow the simplest rules of prevention: they spent a lot of time with the sick, did not bury the deceased for a long time, did not look after the children.

But one should not blame the writer’s family for frivolity: despite the fact that cholera, which came from India, was already familiar to Europeans, they knew nothing about the causative agents of the disease and the routes of penetration. It is now known that cholera bacillus living in dirty water provokes dehydration, which is why the patient dies a few days after the first symptoms appear. In the middle of the 19th century, no one suspected that the source of the disease was sewage, and people needed to be treated for dehydration, and not for fever - at best, the sick were warmed up with blankets and hot water bottles or rubbed with all kinds of spices, and at worst, they were bled, They gave me opiates and even mercury. The cause of the disease was considered to be the stench in the air (which, however, brought some benefit - residents removed garbage from the streets and installed sewers to get rid of the destructive smell).

The English physician John Snow was the first to draw attention to the water. In 1854, cholera killed more than 600 residents of London's Soho district. Snow noticed that all the sick people drank water from the same water pump. Soho lived in the most terrible conditions of unsanitary conditions: the area was not connected to the city water supply system, so drinking water here was mixed with contaminated sewage. Moreover, the contents of overflowing cesspools ended up in the Thames, causing the cholera bacillus to spread to other areas of London.

For a modern person, it is obvious that the most terrible epidemics in the history of mankind were provoked by precisely such cases of flagrant unsanitary conditions, but the inhabitants of the 19th century were in no hurry to believe the insightful Snow - the version that contaminated air was to blame was too popular. But in the end, the doctor persuaded the residents of Soho to break the handle of the ill-fated column, and the epidemic was stopped. Slowly but surely, the ideas of John Snow were adopted by the governments of different countries, and water supply systems were finally established in cities. However, before this, 4 more cholera epidemics occurred in the history of Europe.

Valentin Kataev in the story “Sir Henry and the Devil” described a terrible disease that many Russian soldiers suffered from at the beginning of the 20th century. The patient tossed about in the heat, he was tormented by hallucinations, as if there were rats in his ear, which were constantly squeaking and scratching. The light of an ordinary light bulb seemed almost unbearably bright to the patient, some kind of suffocating smell spread throughout the room, and there were more and more rats in his ears. Such terrible torment did not seem anything unusual to ordinary Russian people - typhoid patients appeared in every village and every regiment. Doctors hoped only for luck, because there was nothing to treat typhus until the middle of the 20th century.

Typhus became a real scourge for Russian soldiers during the First World War and the Civil War. According to official data, in 1917-1921. 3-5 million fighters died, but some researchers who also analyzed civilian casualties estimate the scale of the disaster at 15-25 million lives. Typhus is transmitted to humans through body louse - it was this fact that became fatal for Russian peasants. The fact is that lice were then treated quite leniently, as something normal and not subject to destruction. Residents of peaceful villages had them and, of course, bred them in large numbers in unsanitary war conditions, when soldiers lived en masse in places unsuitable for habitation. It is unknown what losses the Red Army would have suffered during World War II if Professor Alexey Vasilyevich Pshenichnov had not produced a vaccine against typhus in 1942.

When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of modern Mexico in 1519, about 22 million people lived there. After 80 years, the local population barely numbered a million. The mass death of residents is not associated with special atrocities of the Spaniards, but with a bacterium that they unknowingly brought with them. But only 4 centuries later, scientists found out what disease wiped out almost all the indigenous Mexicans. In the 16th century it was called cocoliztli.

It is quite difficult to describe the symptoms of the mysterious disease, since it took on a wide variety of forms. Some died from severe intestinal infections, some especially suffered from fever syndromes, and others choked on blood accumulated in the lungs (although the lungs and spleen failed in almost everyone). The disease lasted 3-4 days, mortality reached 90%, but only among the local population. If the Spaniards caught cocoliztli, it was in a very mild, non-lethal form. Therefore, scientists came to the conclusion that the dangerous bacterium was brought with them by Europeans, who probably had long ago developed immunity to it.

Cocoliztli was initially thought to be typhoid fever, although some symptoms contradicted this conclusion. Then scientists suspected hemorrhagic fever, measles and smallpox, but without DNA analysis, all these theories remained highly controversial. Studies carried out already in our century have established that Mexicans during the colonization period were carriers of the bacterium Salmonella enterica, which causes the intestinal infection paratyphoid C. The DNA of people who lived in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards does not contain the bacterium, but Europeans suffered from paratyphoid fever back in the 11th century . Over the past centuries, their bodies have become accustomed to the pathogenic bacterium, but it almost completely destroyed the unprepared Mexicans.

Spanish flu

According to official data, the First World War claimed about 20 million lives, but another 50-100 million people died due to the Spanish flu pandemic. The deadly virus, which originated (according to some sources) in China, could well have died there, but the war spread it throughout the world. As a result, in 18 months, a third of the world’s population contracted the Spanish flu; about 5% of people on the planet died from choking in their own blood. Many of them were young and healthy, had excellent immunity - and literally burned out in three days. History has never known more dangerous epidemics.

“Pneumonic plague” appeared in the provinces of China back in 1911, but then the disease had no opportunity to spread further, and it gradually faded away. A new wave occurred in 1917 - the world war made it a global epidemic. China sent volunteers to the West, which was in dire need of workers. The Chinese government made the decision to quarantine too late, so sick lungs arrived along with the workers. And then - the well-known scenario: in the morning in an American military unit, symptoms appeared in one person, by the evening there were already about a hundred patients, and a week later there would hardly be a state in the United States untouched by the virus. Together with the British troops stationed in America, the deadly flu came to Europe, where it reached first France and then Spain. If Spain was only 4th in the chain of the disease, then why was the flu called “Spanish”? The fact is that until May 1918, no one informed the public about the terrible epidemic: all the “infected” countries participated in the war, so they were afraid to announce to the population about a new scourge. And Spain remained neutral. About 8 million people fell ill here, including the king, that is, 40% of the population. It was in the interest of the nation (and all humanity) to know the truth.

The Spanish flu killed almost with lightning speed: on the first day the patient felt nothing but fatigue and headache, and the next day he was constantly coughing up blood. Patients died, as a rule, on the third day in terrible agony. Before the advent of the first antiviral drugs, people were absolutely helpless: they limited contact with others in every possible way, tried not to travel anywhere, wore bandages, ate vegetables and even made voodoo dolls - nothing helped. But in China, by the spring of 1918, the disease began to decline - the residents again developed immunity against the Spanish flu. The same thing probably happened in Europe in 1919. The world was free of the flu epidemic - but only for 40 years.

Plague

“On the morning of the sixteenth of April, Dr. Bernard Rieux, leaving his apartment, tripped over a dead rat on the landing” - this is how the beginning of a great catastrophe is described in the novel “The Plague” by Albert Camus. It was not for nothing that the great French writer chose this fatal disease: from the 5th century. BC e. and until the 19th century. n. e. There are more than 80 plague epidemics. This means that the disease has been with humanity more or less always, either subsiding or attacking with renewed vigor. Three pandemics are considered the most ferocious in history: the Plague of Justinian in the 5th century, the famous “Black Death” in the 14th century, and the third pandemic at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.

Emperor Justinian the Great could remain in the memory of posterity as the ruler who revived the Roman Empire, revised Roman law and made the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, but fate decreed otherwise. In the tenth year of the emperor's reign, the sun literally dimmed. Ash from the eruption of three major volcanoes in the tropics has polluted the atmosphere, blocking the sun's rays. Just a few years later, in the 40s. VI century, an epidemic came to Byzantium, the like of which the world had never seen. Over 200 years of the plague (which at times covered the entire civilized world, and all other years existed as a local epidemic), more than 100 million people died in the world. Residents died from suffocation and ulcers, from fever and from insanity, from intestinal disorders and even from invisible infections that killed outright seemingly healthy citizens. Historians noted that patients did not develop immunity to the plague: someone who survived the plague once or even twice could die after becoming infected again. And after 200 years the disease suddenly disappeared. Scientists are still wondering what happened: did the ice age finally recede take the plague with it, or did people eventually develop immunity?

In the 14th century, cold weather returned to Europe again - and with it the plague. The general nature of the epidemic was facilitated by complete unsanitary conditions in the cities, on the streets of which sewage flowed in streams. Wars and famine also contributed. Medieval medicine, of course, could not fight the disease - doctors gave patients herbal infusions, cauterized buboes, rubbed in ointments, but all in vain. The best treatment turned out to be good care - in very rare cases, patients recovered, simply because they were fed properly and kept warm and comfortable.

The only way to prevent it was to limit contacts between people, but, of course, panic-stricken residents went to all sorts of extremes. Some began to actively atone for sins, fast and self-flagellate. Others, on the contrary, before imminent death, decided to have a good time. Residents greedily grabbed at any opportunity to escape: they bought pendants, ointments and pagan spells from scammers, and then immediately burned witches and organized Jewish pogroms to please the Lord, but by the end of the 50s. The disease gradually disappeared on its own, taking with it about a quarter of the world's population.

The third and final pandemic was not nearly as destructive as the first two, but still killed almost 20 million people. The plague appeared in the mid-19th century in the Chinese provinces - and did not leave their borders almost until the end of the century. 6 million Europeans were destroyed by trade relations with India and China: first the disease slowly approached local ports, and then sailed by ship to the trading centers of the Old World. Surprisingly, the plague stopped there, this time without making its way into the interior of the continent, and by the 30s of the 20th century it had almost disappeared. It was during the third pandemic that doctors determined that rats were carriers of the disease. In 1947, Soviet scientists first used streptomycin in the treatment of plague. The disease that destroyed the world's population for 2 thousand years was defeated.

AIDS

Young, slender, very attractive blond Gaetan Dugas worked as a flight attendant for Canadian airlines. It is unlikely that he ever intended to end up in history - and yet he did, albeit by mistake. From the age of 19, Gaetan led a very active sex life - according to him, he slept with 2,500 thousand men throughout North America - this became the reason for his, unfortunately, sad fame. In 1987, 3 years after his death, journalists called the young Canadian “patient zero” of AIDS - that is, the person with whom the global epidemic began. The results of the study were based on a scheme in which Dugas was marked with a “0” sign, and rays of infection spread from him to all states of America. In fact, the “0” sign in the diagram did not denote a number, but a letter: O – out of California. In the early 80s, in addition to Dugas, scientists studied several other men with symptoms of a strange disease - all of them, except for the imaginary “patient zero,” were Californians. Gaetan Dugas's real number is only 57. And HIV appeared in America back in the 60s and 70s.

HIV was transmitted to humans from monkeys around the 1920s. XX century - probably during the cutting of the carcass of a killed animal, and in human blood it was first discovered in the late 50s. Just two decades later, the virus became the cause of the AIDS epidemic, a disease that destroys the human immune system. Over 35 years of activity, AIDS has killed about 35 million people - and so far the number of people infected is not falling. With timely treatment, the patient can continue to live a normal life with HIV for several decades, but it is not yet possible to completely get rid of the virus. The first symptoms of the disease are persistent fever, prolonged intestinal disorders, and persistent cough (in the advanced stage - with blood). The disease, which in the 80s was considered the scourge of homosexuals and drug addicts, now has no orientation - anyone can catch HIV and in a few years get AIDS. This is why it is so important to follow the simplest rules of prevention: avoid unprotected sexual intercourse, check the sterility of syringes, surgical and cosmetic instruments, and get tested regularly. There is no cure for AIDS. If you are careless once, you can suffer from the symptoms of the virus for the rest of your life and be on antiretroviral therapy, which has its side effects and is definitely not a cheap pleasure. You can read more about the disease.

Swine flu outbreaks, even if the death toll does not exceed 100 people, receive the widest media coverage. Although bouts of the common flu kill thousands of people, it's the swine variety that worries everyone. After all, it threatens to develop into a pandemic, becoming an outbreak of an infectious disease over a large geographical area.

History knows many cases of mass epidemics, some were so powerful that they overthrew governments or even destroyed entire civilizations. Swine flu will most likely be defeated and forgotten. We will tell you about the 10 most striking cases of epidemics that left a huge mark on history.

Plague of Athens. This epidemic broke out in Greece during the Peloponnesian War in 430 BC. Historians have never been able to come to a consensus on whether it was plague, smallpox, typhus or measles. All diseases are under consideration, and the generally accepted version is bubonic plague. The disease began when the people of Athens hid behind the walls of their city-state for protection from the advancing Spartan army. The inevitable overcrowding became a breeding ground for the plague, which is rumored to have killed every third inhabitant of Athens and every third warrior. The city leader, Pericles, was also among the victims of the epidemic. The epidemic was described by the historian Thucydides, it began in Ethiopia and passed through Egypt and Libya. As a result, Athens, which dominated Greece at that time, forever lost its status as the leader of the Hellenic civilization.

Antonine Plague. Today it is generally accepted that this pandemic was an outbreak of measles or smallpox. The Antonine Plague was the same epidemic that led to the decline of the Roman Empire from 165 to 180 AD. It is suspected that the disease, also known as the Plague of Galen (it was this doctor who described it), was brought to Rome by troops returning from the war in the East. Historians believe that at its height, the epidemic killed one in four of the people infected, for a total of about 5 million people. Even two Roman emperors became victims of the plague. Similar diseases broke out in 251, and there was reason to believe that the Antonine plague had returned. The new wave was called the Cyprus Plague; it was so strong that up to 5 thousand people died a day in Rome alone.

Typhus. The disease is known for its ability to spread quickly in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Typhus is responsible for millions of deaths in the 20th century alone. The disease was also called camp or prison typhus, as it broke out both on the front line during the war and in prisons and camps where prisoners were kept in close quarters. It is believed that the pandemic killed about 8 million Germans alone during 30 years of war in the 20th century. It is well documented that typhus was one of the main causes of death in Nazi concentration camps. One of the most famous actions of typhus was the death of the French army during the invasion of Russia in 1812. In Napoleon's army, the epidemic killed about 400 thousand soldiers, which is more than died directly in battle.

Seven cholera pandemics. Cholera has become one of the most dangerous diseases in history, especially the wave of “seven pandemics”. During it, from 1816 to 1960, tens of millions of people died. The disease is transmitted through contaminated food or water. The first victims appeared in India; it is believed that cholera killed up to 40 million people there from 1817 to 1860. The epidemic then spread to Europe and America, where more than one hundred thousand people died in the mid-19th century. Although periodic outbreaks of cholera still appeared then, medical progress significantly weakened its deadly effects. Once the mortality rate from the disease was at least 50 percent, but today it threatens life only in the rarest cases.

Third pandemic. The third pandemic was the third and largest outbreak of the bubonic plague, after the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. It all started in China in the 1850s, eventually spreading to all six inhabited continents of the planet. The pandemic practically disappeared only in the middle of the 20th century. Despite the modern level of medicine, the pandemic ultimately killed about 12 million people in China and India. Today the disease is considered inactive, although as recently as 1995, isolated cases of bubonic plague were reported in the western United States.

Smallpox. Although successfully eradicated today, smallpox was able to devastate America when European settlers first arrived there in the 15th century. Of all the diseases brought to the New World, smallpox became the most dangerous. The disease is credited with the deaths of millions of indigenous people in North and Central America. It was smallpox that destroyed the civilizations of the Incas and Aztecs. This disease is considered to be the main factor under the influence of which these ancient civilizations allowed themselves to be conquered by the Spaniards. And in Europe, epidemics were also terrible. Historians believe that smallpox killed 60 million people in the 18th century alone.

Plague of Justinian. This pandemic is considered one of the first to be recorded in historical records. The Plague of Justinian was a particularly dangerous wave of disease that broke out in the Byzantine Empire around 541. Today it is difficult to talk about the exact number of victims; it is believed that about 100 million people died worldwide. At the peak of the epidemic, up to 5 thousand people died every day, with one in four deaths in the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition to this staggering death rate, the pandemic has also taken on political overtones. Such a blow to Byzantium could not pass without a trace; the empire soon collapsed, irretrievably losing its luster. The plague itself swept through almost all countries of that time - from England to China, significantly changing the course of European history.

Spanish flu. This epidemic arrived in the wake of the devastation of the First World War. As a result, the Spanish flu of 1918 is considered one of the most severe pandemics in history. Experts believe that this type of flu has infected about 30% of the total population worldwide. As a result, more than 100 million people died. The virus was subsequently identified as the H1N1 strain. He appears like a wave, often disappearing into society as quickly as he appeared. The governments of many countries, fearing popular uprisings, did everything to downplay the severity of the epidemic and its consequences. Even military censorship was used. Only Spain, neutral during the World War, allowed the publication of comprehensive news and reports on the new epidemic. This is why the pandemic eventually became known as the Spanish Flu.

Bubonic plague (Black Death). This pandemic is the most famous in the history of our civilization. The Black Death was an epidemic whose massive outbreak ravaged Europe during most of the 14th century. This disease was characterized by bleeding ulcers throughout the body and high fever. Historians estimate that this outbreak of plague killed between 75 and 200 million people. 45-50% of the total population of Europe was destroyed. For another hundred years, the plague appeared here and there, reminding itself and claiming another thousand lives. Its last major outbreak was noted in London in the 1600s.

For the release of The Division, we tell you how humanity fought three terrible epidemics

Deserted snow-covered streets, frozen cars and closed shops. There is no food or medicine, rescue services and police are not working, the city is divided among gangs. This is exactly how New York appears before us in the online game Tom Clancy's The Division.

Nothing extraordinary happened to the city - “just” an outbreak of a smallpox epidemic that wiped out most of the population of the entire city. In the history of mankind, this has happened many times - and today we will talk about the most terrible epidemics that claimed tens and hundreds of millions of lives.

Spanish guest. Influenza epidemic in 1918-1919

Probably each of us is familiar with the flu - this disease comes to visit every winter, migrating from the southern hemisphere to the northern. And every visit ends in an epidemic: the flu virus mutates so quickly that after a year the human immune system has to relearn how to cope with the disease.

An “ordinary” influenza epidemic kills several hundred thousand people, and its victims usually become previously weakened people - children and the elderly, pregnant women, and those who already suffer from serious illnesses. But in 1918, humanity was faced with a flu that killed young and completely healthy people - and killed millions, mowing down entire small towns.

Despite its name, the Spanish Flu probably originated in China in early 1918, from where it spread to the United States. On March 11, at the base at Fort Riley, the virus infected more than 500 soldiers preparing to take part in the First World War. Everything quickly became easier for them and the unit set off on ships to Europe.

So the “Spanish flu” ended up in an almost ideal place. Millions of soldiers were in trenches where basic hygiene rules were not observed and medical care was unavailable. There were also not enough doctors and medicines in the rear - all the best went to the front. Convoys rushed along the sea, railways and roads, which, along with military cargo, also delivered the carrier of the disease.

By the end of April, the flu swept through France, from where it spread throughout Europe in just over two months. Because of the war, governments forbade newspapers to stir up panic, so people began to talk about the epidemic only when the disease reached neutral Spain - hence the name. The virus reached North Africa and India before the end of the summer, and then died down.

At the end of August, the “Spanish flu” moved back - it struck part of Africa, returned to Europe, crossed by ship to the United States, and by winter it covered almost the entire world, except for Madagascar, Australia and New Caledonia. And this time the virus began to kill. The speed of development of the disease frightened even doctors who had seen a lot: in a matter of hours the temperature rose to forty degrees, pain began in the head and muscles, and then the disease reached the lungs, causing severe pneumonia. Already on the second or third day, some died from cardiac arrest, which could not support the upset body. Others held out for up to two weeks, dying due to pneumonia.

Eyewitnesses of the Spanish Flu describe a picture that would be the envy of many disaster movie scenarios. In India, small towns turned into ghosts where the entire population died. In Great Britain, at the height of the war, many factories stopped working, and in Denmark and Sweden, the telegraph and telephone stopped working for some time - simply because there was no one to work. The railways were malfunctioning - some train drivers died en route.

Attempts to create a vaccine were unsuccessful, and there were no funds to support the patient, weakening the symptoms of the infection and allowing the body to cope with the virus on its own. Society tried to protect itself with organizational measures: all public events were cancelled, stores began selling “through a window” through which the client put money and received the goods, and in small American towns a random passerby could be shot if a patrol of conscious citizens thought he looked like on the patient.

The Spanish flu epidemic lasted until the end of 1919, and its third wave did not affect only the Brazilian island of Marajo at the mouth of the Amazon River. The virus infected more than a quarter of the planet's population, and the mortality rate, according to various estimates, ranged from 50 to 100 million - that is, 2.5-5% of the total population of the planet at that time.

Defeated monster. Smallpox

Smallpox, which caused the events of The Division, is no longer found in nature - it is the first disease to be completely eradicated by humans. For the first time, smallpox epidemics were described in detail in the Middle East - in the 4th century, the disease swept across China, then appeared in Korea, and in 737 an epidemic shook Japan, where, according to some sources, up to a third of the population died. At the same time, the virus began to penetrate Europe.

Smallpox disfigures its carrier in a matter of days, covering the body with many ulcers. In this case, you can become infected not only by airborne droplets, but also through clothing, bedding, and dishes onto which the pathogen came from ulcers. In medieval Europe, smallpox at some point became an almost constant companion of humans. Some doctors argued that everyone should have it, and the police pointed out the absence of traces of smallpox as a special sign when searching for a suspect. Every eighth person infected died from smallpox, and among children the mortality rate reached 30%. In “quiet” years, the disease claimed from 800 thousand to one and a half million lives, without sparing those who recovered - in addition to scars from ulcers that remained for life, the infection often led to blindness.

Even more terrible was the smallpox epidemic in America, where the virus arrived with the colonialists. If the immunity of Europeans was at least somehow familiar with the disease, then for the Indians the new virus turned out to be a deadly surprise - in some tribes up to 80-90% of those infected died from smallpox. In fact, the Europeans used a kind of biological weapon - smallpox, as well as other diseases such as malaria, typhus and measles, went ahead of the conquerors, destroying entire villages and weakening the Indians. In the advanced Incan empire, smallpox killed at least 200,000 of its population of six million, weakening the empire so much that the Spanish were able to conquer it with a small force.

The first attempts to treat smallpox were made in India and China back in the 8th-10th centuries - doctors looked for a patient who had a mild form of smallpox, and then infected healthy people with the “weakened” virus. In Europe, this method was tried at the beginning of the 18th century, but the results were controversial - there remained a small percentage of people whom the vaccine, on the contrary, infected and even killed. They became carriers of the disease, so in some cases the treatment itself led to outbreaks of the epidemic.

The real vaccine was discovered at the end of the same century, when the English doctor Edward Jenner began inoculating patients with the cowpox vaccine. This virus was harmless to humans, but caused immunity from “real” smallpox. The medicine turned out to be relatively cheap to produce and use, becoming popular in Europe. But the virus was not going to give up without a fight. The vaccine often turned out to be of poor quality, plus they did not immediately learn how to re-vaccinate after several decades. Smallpox struck its last major blow in 1871–1873, when mortality in Europe rose to the same level as a century earlier.

By the second half of the 20th century, smallpox was driven out of developed countries. People continued to get sick only in Asia, Africa and South America, from where the virus regularly tried to break back. For the final victory, in 1967, the World Health Organization launched an unprecedented program worth $1.2 billion (in 2010 prices), the goal of which was to vaccinate at least 80% of the population of problem countries - this is the level that was considered sufficient to stop the spread of the virus.

The program dragged on for almost ten years, but ended in success - the last smallpox patient was registered in 1977 in Somalia. To date, smallpox does not exist in nature - samples of the virus are stored in only two laboratories in the USA and Russia.

Black killer. Plague epidemic of 1346-1353

Since 1312, the Little Ice Age began on Earth - the temperature dropped sharply, and rains and frosts destroyed crop after crop, causing a terrible famine in Europe. Well, in 1346 another misfortune came - a terrible disease. The skin of those who caught the infection began to become covered with “buboes” - lymph nodes that were inflamed and swollen to enormous sizes. The patients suffered from a terrible fever, and many were coughing up blood - this meant that the disease had reached the lungs. The chances of recovery were minimal - according to modern estimates, the mortality rate was more than 90%.

Later, historians would call this disease the “Black Death” - probably because of the number of deaths (the word “black” was replaced by “many people” in translation). In fact, we are talking about a plague known to many.

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