Epidemic: Past Incidents

There have been several deadly pandemics in the history of our civilization, generally linked with domestication of animals. In this section, we will look at some of the more significant outbreaks in recent history.

1889-1890
The "Asiatic Flu" was first reported in Bukhara, Russia. It quickly spread around the world, hitting North America, South America, Indian, and Australia with a high mortality rate.
1918-1919
The "Spanish Flu" was first reported in Camp Funstan, Kansas at a US military training camp. Within seven months it became a worldwide pandemic that killed over 25 million people.
1957-1958
The "Asian Flu" first identified in China spread to the United States in four months and killed 70,000 people.
1961-the 1970s
The seven outbreak of cholera, a water born disease, spread across the world. It began in Indonesia in 1961, and reached Bangladesh, India, and the USSR by 1966.
1968-1969
The "Hong Kong Flu" spread to the United States and killed 34,000 people. In the 1970s there were controlled outbreaks in Japan and in the South Pacific.
January 1991-September 1994
There was another cholera outbreak in South America beginning in Peru that caused almost 10,000 deaths and infected more than one million.

There are several other diseases that have caused worldwide concerns but are not quite on the scale of pandemics yet. These diseases include HIV, SARS, and the Avian Bird Flu.

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be classified as a pandemic but is most extensive in southern and eastern Africa. Other countries have small proportions of their populations with HIV and AIDS, and are not experiencing rapid rates of infection.

SARS was spreading in 2003 after first appearing in November 2002 in the Guangdong Province of China. It caused worldwide concern because of its highly contagious nature and its near 10% mortality rate. In total, there were nearly 8,500 cases of the disease with 813 deaths.

Today, there are concerns that the Avian Flu might become a global pandemic. In February 2004, it was first detected in pigs in Vietnam. The biggest fear is an antigenetic drift that will form a new subtype that will be highly contagious and lethal in humans. So far, there have been isolated cases in Vietnam, Turkey, China, Russia, Mongolia, and Vietnam, Greece, Romania, Croatia, Bulgarian, and the United Kingdom. So far, less than 100 people have died from the H5N1 virus.

Sources Consulted

Sources