Top 10 Worst Epidemics in History

[Music] it's hard to believe that something so tiny could destroy so many in just two years this terrible plague was to claim over 20 million lives welcome to watchmojo.com and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 worst epidemics in history as for adults those born before 1957 probably got the measles because there was no vaccine back then for this list we're looking at plagues pandemics and other scourge ah's of disease that spread through the human population like wildfire killing millions the disease permanently scarred both his body and his mind we're not necessarily ranking them based on how many people were killed by the place but those figures definitely play into our choices there were areas where outbreaks that occurred where the referee was not there to transmit but nevertheless they had a bubonic plague outbreak number 10 the third cholera pandemic by morning my father was very sick he had diarrhea that looked like rainwater and poured out of him the unlucky victims of this disease suffered through hellish final days with diarrhea vomiting and resulting dehydration being the main symptoms this is the emergence area where the fish and pasta meet the passion of severe dehydration severe dehydration is a medical emergency with the most deaths of any 19th century epidemic the third cholera pandemic began in India and spread across Asia Europe North America and Africa to countries like Russia where over 1 million people died so in a matter of days you might have 10 people infected then a hundred people than 500 people one person in five will get severe diarrhea without quick treatment up to half of those people might die however it took an outbreak of this severity for the cause of cholera to be found in 1854 British doctor Jon Snow discovered that tainted water was to blame and it was this breakthrough that eventually allowed officials to get control of the cholera pandemic first we made the water safe we filtered it through cloth and pulled it for one minute number nine the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 we all missed it the military missed it and the World Health Organization missed it though it can be confirmed that this outbreak of the influenza A virus started in China the exact origins of the virus are contested with one popular theory suggesting that a mutation in wild ducks joined together with a typical human strain to create the new disease one of three flu pandemics during the 20th century this one was the least deadly with estimated global death figures ranging between one and four million and that's likely due to the fact that a vaccine was created in 1957 that helped stem the rash of infections from this avian flu and 40 million doses of vaccine by the time that that the end of the year came number 8 the world war 1 typhus epidemic food was growing ever more scarce the queues outside the bread shop stretched right down the length of the street taking place during a time of incredible strife this typhus outbreak was another devastating result of World War one a disease caused by bacteria whose symptoms include severe back pain and delirium this particular outbreak originated with lice the perfect setup for epidemic and then it's gone typhus it was for this reason that delousing stations for the soldiers had been set up on the Western Front which helped keep those troops healthy next the 40,000 Italians dwelling in the jam-packed air-raid shelters were delouse however the Eastern Front was not so lucky by the time of its peak between 25 and 30 million cases were reported across Soviet regions with 3 million Russians and even more poles and Romanians dying from infection in over 3 brutal years 2,300,000 Russian a further five million into number seven cocoa literally the Aztecs crowning achievement was a gleaming capital city that astonished European explorers called the Venice of the new world this disease is categorized in a group of ailments called viral hemorrhagic fever a family of illnesses that continues to attack humanity with viruses like Ebola it is in Monrovia slums that Ebola is spreading fastest affecting the Aztecs living in the region that would become Mexico twice in less than half a century cocoa Leslie decimated the population infecting a group that was already reeling from other diseases brought to their shores by Spanish conquerors and causing their numbers to dwindle by millions in less than a century with symptoms that included a black tongue dysentery severe abdominal pain and bleeding from your nose eyes and mouth this Ebola like epidemic annihilated what was once a thriving civilization the Aztec empire had vanished and with it a legacy of astonishing engineering achievements number six the plague of Justinian this turns out to have been one of the most virulent pandemics in history a forebearer of a pandemic that will be featured later on this list this plague is believed to have been brought to the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople specifically by infected rats traveling from Egypt on grain boats some citizens blamed the plague on the Empress Theodora saying it was a punishment from God for her sexual promiscuity an event that likely changed the course of European and Christian history the plague of Justinian left the Byzantine Empire short of healthy citizens who could act as laborers or militaries meaning the Empire was severely weakened symptoms would begin with a sudden fever followed by chills vomiting and an increased sensitivity to light with some suggesting that at its peak the mortality rate of this plague took 5,000 lives each day the first wave of this disease eradicated 40% of Constantinople population and continued to kill through several more waves in the years that followed if the future looked bleak for Europe before now it looked pitch-black number 5 the Antonine plague the earliest pandemic on this list this scourge came to the roman empire by way of soldiers returning from fighting in western asia however what form it took is up for debate with some thinking smallpox or measles were to blame symptoms start out with coughing runny nose and a high fever of 104 degrees the rash appears three to five days later though it wasn't as deadly as Justinian with only 2,000 dying in Rome per day at its pinnacle and likely 5 million succumbing to the disease in total the fact that it most probably claimed the lives of two Roman emperors Lucas way rose and Marcus Aurelius and Tony noose served to plunge the land into fear and chaos and likely changed the course of history and the emperor reaps the rewards number four the third plague pandemic every rat captured was examined for signs of disease anyone who brought in a rat dead or alive was paid ten cents the third recorded iteration of the bubonic plague after the plague of Justinian and the Black Death this plague ravaged the world for over a century in 1900 San Francisco suffered a brief outbreak of plague brought in by rats on a boat from the Far East plague was now lurking in the sewers beneath the city beginning with diseased rodents in China's Yunnan Province in the 1850s and spreading to all populated areas of the globe thanks to the world's newly established interconnection this pandemic killed 12 million and that was just in China and India the bacillus spread quickly as it moved along trade routes in the blood of infected rats with it came the plane finally ending in 1959 when death rates from the disease dropped to roughly 200 according to the World Health Organization this third plague pandemic allowed doctors and scientists to study the infection and test new treatments fortunately that helped stave off another coming of the plague by the middle of the 20th century the Black Death had been named and tamed plague could be treated with antibiotics rats could be exterminated number three hiv/aids over fifty thousand men women and children now carry the AIDS virus but in three years nearly two thousand of us will be dead theorized to have spread from primates to humans sometime in the 20th century there was a case of an HIV infected human in the Congo in 1959 but it wasn't until the early 1980s that the disease was detected and named in the United States and the epidemic known as AIDS truly began to spread and define the subsequent decade out there swimming playing tennis you know buffed coming in and we're died I mean we're dead ten days later despite early ignorant that the disease was exclusive to homosexual males and intravenous drug users eight attacked those who didn't take precautions indiscriminately and without mercy a positive diagnosis is still a life altering experience in Cambodia people living with HIV are often disowned by friends family and the community where they live this humiliation can be unbearable fortunately after over 30 years and over 36 million deaths scientists have been making headway in terms of treatments and possible vaccines although sub-saharan Africa is still badly affected in Africa there's a much higher prevalence of HIV so your probability of being exposed to someone who's infected is much greater number two the 1918 flu pandemic it was the worst epidemic this country has ever known various strains of the influenza virus have wreaked havoc on the world again and again but there are two things that ensured this outbreaks inclusion it afflicted 500 million people killing between 50 and 100 million and it mainly killed healthy adults influence I gave you such high fever mother told me that I saw her black hair was a cat and I was afraid of it was a delirium from the tire paper most flu viruses are dangerous for the very young the very old and the already weakened but this strain of the h1n1 virus caused the immune systems of its victims to jump into overdrive and attack and the healthier the immune system the more violent the result and within a matter of months as many as 50 million would be dead affecting countries across the globe as isolated as the Pacific Islands or the Arctic the outbreak nicknamed the Spanish flu has been labeled one of history's worst natural disasters we still know much less than we'd like about influenza but the experiences of the individuals who endure the pandemic of 1918 and the research into that pandemic continue to contribute to our understanding of the disease before we reveal our top pick here is an honorable or in this case dishonorable mention the United Nations based Agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase six on a six point scale indicating the first flu pandemic since 1968 is underway number one the Black Death few who caught the disease ever recovered so rapidly did it spread but it seemed one learn could infect the whole world peaking in the 14th century but affecting Europe until the 17th the Black Death is thought to have killed between 75 and 200 million people which represented roughly 30 to 60 percent of Europe's entire population at the time in just two years it had swept across Western Europe spread north over to England and then finally to Scandinavia suspected by many to be a version of the bubonic plague that originated in infected rodents this disease was most easily recognized by the tumors that covered victims bodies with so many dying so rapidly bodies littered the streets as cemeteries were at capacity while some governments attempted quarantines and some citizens turned to God for aid there was very little that could be done to stop this infection families were torn apart villages deserted business collapsed States bankrupted by loss of taxes that doesn't even touch upon the horror of witnessing your loved ones suffering or the fear that you might be next after the Black Death the plague returned to haunt Europe every few decades until the mid 17th century though never again with the ferocity of that first amputee do you agree with our list what do you think was the worst pandemic in the world's history for more historic top 10s published every day be sure to subscribe to watchmojo.com I told him to always wash his hands with soap and safe water after going to the toilet [Music]

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Keywords: Epidemic (Cause Of Death), worst epidemics, diseases, plagues, deaths, Third Cholera Pandemic, Asian Flu Pandemic, World War I Typhus Epidemic, The Black Death, 1918 Flu Pandemic, Third Plague Pandemic, HIV, AIDS, Antonine Plague, Plague of Justinian, ebola, top 10, watchmojo, Health (Industry)

Id: tefAgSl-SWs

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2015