The most unpleasant diseases in the world. Deadly nine: the most terrible infections in the world (11 photos)

The most terrible epidemics in human history have claimed hundreds of millions of lives, sometimes wiping out entire nations from the face of the earth. Here is a list of the 10 most famous and dangerous diseases that we have ever encountered.

Typhus.

One of the most dangerous diseases caused by the bacterium Rickettsia. The name comes from the Greek typhos, which means “smoky or foggy.” The first reliable description of the disease dates back to the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada in 1489. These records include descriptions of fever and red spots on the arms, back and chest, progressing to delirium, necrotic wounds and the stench of rotting flesh. During that siege, the Spaniards lost 3,000 men in military clashes, but another 17,000 died from typhus. Epidemics occurred throughout Europe from the 16th to the 19th centuries, as well as during the English civil war, Thirty Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. During the Thirty Years' War of 1618 - 1648 alone, approximately 8 million Germans were exterminated by bubonic plague and typhus. During Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in 1812, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by Russian troops.

One of the most dangerous diseases causing serious epidemics. In its most severe form, cholera can be fatal. If treatment is not provided within three hours, the infected person may die. Signs are diarrhea, shock, nosebleeds, leg cramps, vomiting and dry skin. The first outbreak of cholera was reported in Bengal, and from there it spread to India, China, Indonesia and the Caspian Sea. When the pandemic finally ended in 1826, there were more than 15 million deaths in India alone. Oral rehydration therapy and antibiotics currently treat this disease successfully.

Smallpox is believed to have started infecting people as early as 10,000 BC. e. However, serious smallpox epidemics began much later. In England during the 18th century, the disease killed approximately 400,000 people every year and caused many cases of blindness. Main sign- outbreak of small ulcers all over the body. Other symptoms include vomiting, back pain, fever and headache. Most early symptom smallpox was discovered in ancient Egyptian mummies. It is believed that Egyptian traders brought the disease to India, where it remained for 2,000 years. Following successful vaccination campaigns during the 19th and 20th centuries, smallpox was declared eradicated in December 1979. To date, smallpox is the only human infection which was completely destroyed.

Spanish flu (Spanish flu).

The 1918 influenza pandemic spread virtually throughout the world. The epidemic was caused by an unusually dangerous and deadly influenza virus of the H1N1 subtype. Historical and epidemiological data do not allow the geographic origin of the virus to be determined. Most of its victims were healthy, young, and adults, unlike most influenza outbreaks, which predominantly affected children, the elderly, or debilitated patients. The pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It is believed that between 20 and 100 million people were killed worldwide - the approximate equivalent of one third of Europe's population. Interestingly, the Spanish flu comes from the same subtype (H1N1) as the Swine flu.

Yellow fever.

Symptoms of yellow fever are fever, chills, slow heartbeat, nausea, vomiting and constipation. The disease is estimated to cause approximately 30,000 deaths each year if people are not vaccinated. A famous outbreak of yellow fever was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1793. The disease killed as many as 10,000 people in Philadelphia alone. Most of the population fled the city, including the president. But the mayor remained, and the life of the city was soon restored.

Ebola virus.

Many people have heard about this disease, but not everyone knows well where and when it appeared, what it is, and why it is generally dangerous? Ebola hemorrhagic fever is named after the Ebola River, where its first recognized outbreak occurred. The Ebola virus first appeared in 1976 in Zaire and remained unidentified until 1989, with an outbreak in Reston, Virginia. It has been confirmed that the dangerous disease is transmitted through body fluids, but transmission through simple interaction with a sick person is possible. On early stages Ebola may not be very contagious. Contact with someone in the early stages may not even transmit the disease. As the disease progresses, bodily fluids from diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding present an emergency biological hazard. Due to the lack of proper equipment and hygienic practices, large-scale epidemics occur mainly in poor, isolated areas without modern hospitals or educated medical staff.

Symptoms of malaria include anemia, fever, cold, and even coma or death. This disease is usually spread when a person is bitten by an Anopheles mosquito who has contracted the infection from another person. Malaria is much less “hyped” in the media, unlike the Ebola Virus, but it poses a much greater danger. Each year, approximately 400 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, killing millions of people. This disease is one of the most common infectious diseases and is very serious problem. Currently, no vaccine helps with full probability save the patient, but developments are ongoing.

Tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis caused widespread public concern in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a local disease of the urban poor. In 1815, one in four deaths in England was due to tuberculosis. By 1918, one in six deaths in France was still caused by the disease. In the 20th century, tuberculosis killed approximately 100 million people. This is often fatal disease, which affects the lungs. Signs: cough, weight loss, night sweats, and saliva with blood. Skeletal remains show that people as early as 7000 BC. e. were infected with tuberculosis.

Polio.

Poliomyelitis is highly contagious. This is a disease that affects the central nervous system and spine, sometimes leaving the victim paralyzed. Signs - headache, neck, back and abdominal pain, vomiting, fever and irritability. In 1952, an outbreak in the United States left 20,000 children paralyzed and over 3,000 dead. Since then, a vaccine has been created and most children are protected.

Bubonic plague.

Swollen lymph glands, red and then blackened skin, hard breath, rotting limbs, vomiting blood and terrible pain These are just some of the signs of the bubonic plague. The pain is caused by rotting and decay of the flesh. This disease has claimed more than 200 million lives. Perhaps the most famous and terrible pandemic occurred in Europe in the late 1300s. The plague was then nicknamed nothing more than “Black Death.” In those years, the plague almost halved the entire population of Europe. Bubonic plague is usually caused by the bite of an infected flea. Today there are several vaccines that cure people, but once upon a time it was the most dangerous and terrible disease of all possible.

You can die from a cold, a runny nose, or hiccups - the probability is a tiny fraction of a percent, but it exists. Mortality from common flu is up to 30% in children less than a year old and elderly people. And if you pick up one of the nine most dangerous infections, the chance of recovery will be calculated in fractions of a percent.

1. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

1st place among deadly infections went to spongiform encephalopathy, also known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The infectious agent-pathogen was discovered relatively recently - humanity became acquainted with prion diseases in the mid-twentieth century. Prions are proteins causing disturbance functions, and then cell death. Due to their special resistance, they can be transmitted from animals to humans through digestive tract– a person becomes ill after eating a piece of beef with nerve tissue from an infected cow. The disease lies dormant for years. Then the patient begins to develop personality disorders - he becomes sloppy, grumpy, becomes depressed, his memory suffers, sometimes his vision suffers, even to the point of blindness. Over 8-24 months, dementia develops and the patient dies from disorders brain activity. The disease is very rare (only 100 people have fallen ill over the past 15 years), but absolutely incurable.

The human immunodeficiency virus has moved from 1st to 2nd place quite recently. It is also classified as a new disease - until the second half of the 20th century, infectious lesions were discussed immune system the doctors didn't know. According to one version, HIV appeared in Africa, passing to humans from chimpanzees. According to another, he escaped from a secret laboratory. In 1983, scientists managed to isolate an infectious agent that causes immune damage. The virus was transmitted from person to person through blood and semen through contact with damaged skin or mucous membrane. At first, people from the “risk group” – homosexuals, drug addicts, prostitutes – fell ill with HIV, but as the epidemic grew, cases of infection appeared through blood transfusions, instruments, during childbirth, etc. Over the 30 years of the epidemic, HIV has infected more than 40 million people, of whom about 4 million have already died, and the remaining may die if HIV progresses to the AIDS stage - a defeat of the immune system that makes the body defenseless to any infections. The first documented case of recovery was recorded in Berlin - an AIDS patient received a successful transplant bone marrow from a donor resistant to HIV.

3. Rabies

Rabies virus, the causative agent of rabies, takes an honorable 3rd place. Infection occurs through saliva through a bite. Incubation period ranges from 10 days to 1 year. The disease begins with a depressed state, slightly elevated temperature, itching and pain at the bite sites. After 1-3 days it appears acute phase- rabies that frightens others. The patient cannot drink, any sudden noise, flash of light, sound flowing water cause convulsions, hallucinations and violent attacks begin. After 1-4 days, the frightening symptoms weaken, but paralysis appears. The patient dies from respiratory failure. Full course preventive vaccinations reduces the likelihood of disease to hundredths of a percent. However, once symptoms of the disease appear, recovery is almost impossible. With the help of the experimental “Milwaukee Protocol” (immersion in an artificial coma), four children have been saved since 2006.

4. Hemorrhagic fever

This term hides a whole group of tropical infections caused by filoviruses, arboviruses and arenaviruses. Some fevers are transmitted by airborne droplets, some through mosquito bites, some directly through blood, contaminated things, meat and milk of sick animals. All hemorrhagic fevers are highly resistant to infectious carriers and are not destroyed by external environment. The symptoms at the first stage are similar - heat, delirium, pain in muscles and bones, then bleeding from physiological orifices of the body, hemorrhages, and bleeding disorders are added. The liver, heart, and kidneys are often affected; necrosis of the fingers and toes may occur due to impaired blood supply. Mortality ranges from 10-20% for yellow fever (the safest, there is a vaccine, treatable) to 90% for Marburg fever and Ebola (vaccines and treatment do not exist).

Yersinia pestis, the plague bacterium, has long since fallen from its honorary pedestal as the deadliest. During the Great Plague of the 14th century, this infection managed to destroy about a third of the population of Europe; in the 17th century, it wiped out a fifth of London. However, already at the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian doctor Vladimir Khavkin developed the so-called Khavkin vaccine, which protects against the disease. The last one took place in 1910-11 large-scale epidemic plague that affected about 100,000 people in China. In the 21st century, the average number of cases is about 2,500 per year. Symptoms - the appearance of characteristic abscesses (buboes) in the area of ​​the axillary or inguinal lymph nodes, fever, fever, delirium. If applied modern antibiotics, the mortality rate from an uncomplicated form is low, but with a septic or pulmonary form (the latter is also dangerous because of the “plague cloud” around patients, consisting of bacteria released when coughing) is up to 90%.

6. anthrax

The anthrax bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, was the first pathogenic microorganism caught by “microbe hunter” Robert Koch in 1876 and identified as the causative agent of the disease. Anthrax is highly contagious, forms special spores that are unusually resistant to external influences– the carcass of a cow that died from an ulcer can poison the soil for several decades. Infection occurs through direct contact with pathogens, and occasionally through gastrointestinal tract or air contaminated with spores. Up to 98% of the disease is cutaneous, with the appearance of necrotic ulcers. Further recovery or transition of the disease to the intestinal or especially dangerous pulmonary form of the disease is possible, with the occurrence of blood poisoning and pneumonia. The mortality rate for the cutaneous form without treatment is up to 20%, for the pulmonary form – up to 90%, even with treatment.

The last of the “old guard” of especially dangerous infections, which still causes deadly epidemics - 200,000 patients, more than 3,000 deaths in 2010 in Haiti. The causative agent is Vibrio cholerae. Transmitted through feces, contaminated water and food. Up to 80% of people who have been in contact with the pathogen remain healthy or transmit the disease to mild form. But 20% are faced with moderate, severe and fulminant forms of the disease. Symptoms of cholera are painless diarrhea up to 20 times a day, vomiting, convulsions and severe dehydration, leading to fatal outcome. With full treatment (tetracycline antibiotics and fluoroquinolones, hydration, restoration of electrolyte and salt balance) the chance of dying is low; without treatment, the mortality rate reaches 85%.

8. Meningococcal infection

Meningococcus Neisseria meningitidis is the most insidious infectious agent among the especially dangerous ones. The body is affected not only by the pathogen itself, but also by toxins released during the decay of dead bacteria. The carrier is only a person, it is transmitted by airborne droplets, through close contact. Mostly children and people with weakened immune systems fall ill, about 15% of total number were in contact. An uncomplicated disease - nasopharyngitis, runny nose, sore throat and fever, without consequences. Meningococcemia is characterized by high fever, rash and hemorrhages, meningitis by septic brain damage, meningoencephalitis by paralysis. Mortality without treatment is up to 70%, with timely started therapy – 5%.

9. Tularemia

She's the same mouse fever, deer disease, “minor plague”, etc. Caused by the small gram-negative bacillus Francisella tularensis. Transmitted through the air, through ticks, mosquitoes, contact with patients, food products etc., virulence is close to 100%. The symptoms are similar in appearance to the plague - buboes, lymphadenitis, high fever, pulmonary forms. It is not lethal, but causes long-term impairment and, theoretically, is an ideal basis for the development of bacteriological weapons.

10. Ebola virus
The Ebola virus is transmitted through direct contact with the blood, secretions, and other fluids and organs of an infected person. The virus is not transmitted by airborne droplets. The incubation period ranges from 2 to 21 days.
Characteristics of Ebola fever sudden rise body temperature, expressed general weakness, muscle pain, headaches, and sore throat. This is often accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, kidney and liver dysfunction, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Laboratory tests reveal low levels white blood cells and platelets along with increased content liver enzymes.
IN severe cases disease requires intensive replacement therapy, since patients often suffer from dehydration and need intravenous infusions or oral rehydration with solutions containing electrolytes.
There is still no specific treatment for Ebola hemorrhagic fever or a vaccine against it. As of 2012, none of the major pharmaceutical companies have invested money in developing a vaccine against the Ebola virus, since such a vaccine potentially has a very limited market: in 36 years (since 1976), there have been only 2,200 cases of illness.

Medicine does not stand still, and today doctors have the opportunity to successfully heal people from diseases that were difficult to treat until relatively recently. However, the most dangerous diseases in the world still remain, which subject a person infected with a terrible virus to torment and claim millions of lives. To complicate the situation, many viruses and bacteria are constantly evolving, creating obstacles for scientists to create life-saving drugs. Let's look at these most dangerous diseases in the world, which you wouldn't wish even your enemy to encounter.

AIDS

Human acquired immune deficiency syndrome has become the scourge of the 20th and then the 21st centuries. Today, this disease still cannot be treated, since no cure has been invented for it. The virus (HIV), which causes the disease, was discovered in the last century (in the early seventies), but its study continues continuously to this day. With AIDS, a person's immune system is greatly weakened, as a result of which the body is unable to fight disease. The patient may even die from common cold. As a rule, from the moment of infection the disease develops within 5-10 years.

At first, AIDS was considered a “shameful” disease (associated with drug addiction, prostitution) and little was said about it, but gradually the situation changed, and propaganda against of this disease. This disease on this moment Over 40,000,000 people around the world have already been infected. But some people do not even suspect the presence of such a disease, so it is believed that the number of people suffering from this disease is much higher. However, it cannot be said that medicine has not achieved results - albeit small, but they exist. For example, developed antiviral drugs, allowing to prolong the life of a person with AIDS.

Black pox

This most dangerous disease in the world has claimed the lives of a huge number of people on our planet. It is medieval, since there are descriptions of it in ancient Indian and Chinese texts. In the last century alone, approximately 500,000,000 people died from smallpox. No wonder it causes great fear among people, because this disease simply rots people alive. The mortality rate from smallpox ranges from 20 to 90 percent. Those who survived smallpox were "rewarded" with blindness and terrible scars located all over the body.

Today it is believed that smallpox was defeated thanks to vaccination in the early eighties of the last century. However, the smallpox virus is currently available in laboratories in our country and the United States. It is very tenacious and can be stored frozen for years. That's why this disease remains just as scary and dangerous.

Malaria

This disease, also called “swamp fever,” has been known to mankind for quite a long time. The infection is transmitted through mosquito bites. The disease progresses quite quickly, accompanied by chills, fever and fever, anemia and increased internal organs(spleen and liver).

Thank God, this disease does not occur in our latitudes, but it prevails in African countries (especially in backward areas where there is no clean water for drinking, normal conditions for living and proper medical care). Therefore, in Africa, the mortality rate from this disease is very high - every year up to 500,000,000 million Africans are exposed to malaria, and over 3,000,000 people die. Overall, many people die from this disease. more people than from AIDS (15 times).

Bubonic plague

This disease, nicknamed the “Black Death,” literally wiped out half the population of medieval Europe. That is why it is considered one of the most dangerous diseases in the world, which can kill millions of people in a matter of time. The mortality rate from this disease, which was accompanied by swollen lymph nodes, fever, vomiting, blackened skin, and delirium, was 99 percent. The disease spared no one - neither children nor adults.

Even doctors were afraid of this terrible infection, since they also quickly became infected. Therefore, doctors began visiting patients wearing special masks with a beak, into which aromatic substances were placed, which were believed to protect against the vile odor. It was this stench, according to doctors, that caused the infection. Therefore, in order to provide themselves with as much protection as possible, doctors sewed special coats from heavy fabrics impregnated with wax.

Victory over the plague was achieved in the 19th century, when the cause of its occurrence was identified by the microbiologist Yersin. He found out that the cause of the infection was flea bites from infected animals. Even today there are recorded cases of plague, but this disease can be successfully cured with the help of antibacterial drugs, but requires constant medical supervision.

Spanish flu

At the beginning of the 20th century, this disease claimed the lives of many people on Earth (from 20,000,000 to 59,000,000 according to various estimates). “Spanish flu” was nicknamed so for the place where it first appeared - it was infected en masse in Spain. The soldiers of the First World War tried to protect themselves from the disease with the help of gas masks, but this helped little - weakness, pain in the throat and joints, fever, that is, flu symptoms overtook them.

This disease disappeared as quickly as it began (after 18 months). No one could identify its cause, but only modern scientists concluded that the Spanish flu was caused by the same H1N1 influenza virus, which the press was making noise about a few years ago (avian and swine flu). We can say that the common flu should be included in the list of the most dangerous diseases in the world, since it can also be fatal.

Cholera

We can safely call this disease a “weapon” mass destruction" In just a few days, cholera can kill a person. If you do not provide treatment to an infected person medical care within three hours, then the person will experience diarrhea, nosebleeds, cramps, vomiting, and it all ends in death.

Thus, the mortality rate from this disease is high, but you can protect yourself from cholera by following sanitary rules hygiene and drinking clean water. Also, in our time, cholera can be successfully cured with antibiotics.

Tuberculosis

Is very dangerous infectious disease, which most often affects the human lungs and takes the lives of a huge number of people. Considered a disease of people with low social status. The unadvanced form of the disease can be treated, although it takes quite a while long time. The neglected form often leads to death.

Cancer

Oncological diseases are scary because of their unpredictability. Every year, approximately 14,000,000 people on our planet are diagnosed with cancer. This disease is an uncontrolled cell division causing tumors in organs and tissues of the body. Scientists still cannot understand the cause of this disease and how to protect themselves from it.

Ebola

For the first time this hemorrhagic fever recorded in 1976 (in Zaire). Since then, Ebola has flared up periodically, claiming many lives. Infection occurs from contact with sick people or animals (through body fluids). So, in 2014, the Ebola virus made a lot of noise and brought fear to the entire population of our planet. Thousands of dead and many more infected - this is the result of the virus. And how to treat it is still unknown - scientists have not yet come up with a cure for it. And WHO recognized the still quite young disease as a threat to the whole world.

There are truly tragic chapters in world history called “pandemics” - global epidemics that affected the population of a vast territory at the same time. Entire villages and islands died out. And no one knows what turns of history would await humanity if all these people - of different classes and cultures - remained alive. Perhaps all the progress of the 20th century is the result of the fact that, among others, scientists, writers, artists, doctors and other people who make the world “go round” finally stopped dying. Today we decided to talk about the seven most deadly diseases that have definitely changed and continue to change the fate of our planet.

Plague

Until recently, the plague was one of the most deadly diseases for humanity. When infected with the bubonic form of plague, a person died in 95% of cases; with pneumonic plague, he was doomed with a probability of 98–99%. The world's three largest Black Death epidemics claimed millions of lives around the world. Thus, the Justinian plague, which arose in the Eastern Roman Empire in 541 under Emperor Justinian I, swept half the world - the Middle East, Europe and East Asia- and over two centuries it took more than 100 million lives. According to eyewitnesses, at the height of the epidemic in 544, up to 5,000 people died daily in Constantinople, and the city lost 40% of its population. In Europe, up to 25 million people died from the plague.

The second largest plague pandemic came from China in the mid-14th century and spread like wildfire throughout Asia and Europe, reaching North Africa and Greenland. Medieval medicine could not cope with the black pestilence - over two decades, at least 60 million people died, many regions lost half of their population.

The third plague pandemic, which also originated in China, raged already in the 19th century and ended only at the beginning of the 20th century - in India alone it claimed the lives of 6 million people. All these epidemics set humanity back many years, paralyzing the economy, culture and all development.

It became known only recently that the plague is an infectious disease and is transmitted to people from fleas infected from rodents. The causative agent of the disease, the plague bacillus, was discovered in 1894. And the first anti-plague drugs were created and tested by Russian scientists at the beginning of the 20th century. Immunologist Vladimir Khavkin was the first to develop a vaccine from fever-killed plague bacilli and test it on himself, after which he successfully vaccinated the population of India. First live vaccine against the plague was created and tested by bacteriologist Magdalina Pokrovskaya in 1934. And in 1947, Soviet doctors were the first in the world to use streptomycin to treat plague, which helped to “revive” even the most hopeless patients during an epidemic in Manchuria. Although the disease was generally defeated, local plague epidemics still periodically flare up on the planet: for example, at the beginning of this year, the Black Death “visited” Madagascar, killing more than 50 people. Every year, the number of people infected with the plague is about 2,500.


Victims: Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius and Claudius II, Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, Russian artist Andrei Rublev, Italian painters Andrea del Castagno and Titian Vecellio, French playwright Alexander Hardy and Estonian sculptor Christian Ackerman.

Black pox

Today it is considered completely defeated. Last case black infection ( smallpox) was recorded in 1977 in Somalia. However, until recently it was a real scourge for humanity: the mortality rate was 40%; in the 20th century alone, the virus killed from 300 million to 500 million people. The first epidemic occurred in the 4th century in China, then the populations of Korea, Japan, and India suffered. The Koreans believed in the spirit of smallpox and tried to appease it with food and wine, which they placed on an altar dedicated to “the respected guest smallpox.” The Indians represented smallpox in the form of the goddess Mariatale - an extremely irritable woman in red clothes. In their minds, the smallpox rash appeared from the anger of this goddess: angry with her father, she tore her necklace and threw beads in his face - this is how the ulcers characteristic of the disease appeared.

While studying smallpox, people noticed that this disease rarely affects those who deal with cows and horses - milkmaids, grooms, and cavalrymen turned out to be more resistant to the disease. Later it was proven that the human smallpox virus is very similar to the camel one and, as scientists suggest, it was camels that were the first sources of the infection, and contact with infected artiodactyls gives some immunity to it.

Victims: Smallpox was a curse for many royals - from it to different time the Inca ruler Vaina Capac and the Azetcan ruler Cuitlauac, the English Queen Mary II, the King of France Louis XV, the 17-year-old King of Spain Louis I, who was in power for only seven months, the 14-year-old grandson of Peter the Great Peter II and three japanese emperor. It is unknown what this world would be like if these kings remained on the thrones.

Tuberculosis

In the 19th century, tuberculosis killed a quarter of Europe's adult population - many were in their prime, productive, young and full of plans. In the 20th century, tuberculosis killed about 100 million people worldwide. Type of bacteria disease-causing, was discovered by Robert Koch back in 1882, but humanity still cannot get rid of this disease. According to scientists, a third of the world's population is infected with Koch's bacillus, and new case infections occur every second.

According to WHO, in 2013, 9 million people fell ill with tuberculosis and 1.5 million died from the disease. He is the most murderous of modern infections after AIDS. A sick person only needs to sneeze to infect others. At the same time timely diagnosis and the treatment of this disease is very effective: since 2000, doctors have been able to save more than 40 million human lives.

Victims: consumption interrupted the lives of many famous people, not allowing them to complete everything they planned.


Writers Anton Chekhov, Ilya Ilf, Konstantin Aksakov, Franz Kafka, Emilia Bronte, artists Boris Kustodiev and Vasily Perov, actress Vivien Leigh and others fell victim to it.

Malaria

It is unlikely that it will ever be possible to calculate how many millions of lives mosquitoes have claimed. Today it is malaria mosquitoes are considered the most dangerous animals for humans - much more dangerous than lions, crocodiles, sharks and other predators. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from small insect bites. The vast majority of people who suffer are the future of humanity - children under the age of five.

In 2015 alone, 214 million people fell ill with malaria, and 438,000 of them died. Before 2000, mortality was 60% higher. About 3.2 billion people - almost half of humanity - are constantly at risk of contracting malaria. This is mainly the population of sub-Saharan African countries, but there is a chance of catching malaria in Asia when going on vacation.

There is no vaccine against malaria, but insecticides and repellents can help keep mosquitoes away. By the way, scientists were not immediately able to guess that it was the mosquito that caused fever, chills and other signs of illness. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, several doctors conducted experiments: they deliberately allowed themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes caught in malaria hospitals. These heroic experiments helped to recognize the enemy by sight and begin to fight him.

Victims: the legendary Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun died of malaria, as well as Pope Urban VII, the writer Dante, and the revolutionary Oliver Cromwell.

HIV

“Patient zero” is considered to be a certain Gaetan Dugas, a Canadian steward who was accused of spreading HIV and AIDS in the 1980s. However, recent studies have proven that the virus was transmitted to humans much earlier: at the beginning of the 20th century, a certain hunter from the Congo was infected with it after cutting up the carcass of a sick chimpanzee monkey.

Today, HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is one of the ten leading causes of death in the world (ranking eighth after coronary disease, stroke, cancer and other lung diseases, diabetes and diarrhea). According to WHO estimates, 39 million people have died from HIV and AIDS, and the infection claims 1.5 million lives every year.

Like tuberculosis, the hotspot for HIV is sub-Saharan Africa. There is no cure for the disease, but thanks to therapy, those infected continue to live almost full lives. At the end of 2014, there were approximately 40 million people living with HIV worldwide, with 2 million people worldwide acquiring the disease in 2014. In countries affected by HIV and AIDS, the pandemic is hampering economic growth and increasing poverty.

Last thing:


Victims: in number famous victims AIDS historian Michel Foucault, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (infected through donor blood during heart surgery), singer Freddie Mercury, actor Rock Hudson, Soviet choreographer Rudolf Nureyev.