Top 5 deadliest pandemics and disease outbreaks in history

Throughout history, epidemics and pandemics such as plague, cholera, influenza have decimated humanity. Despite advancements in the modern era, the world remains ill-prepared to detect and respond to outbreaks. Here are the 5 deadliest disease outbreaks in history

The deadliest outbreak on Gavi’s list is the Black Death plague epidemic. According to reports, The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic that struck Europe, North Africa, and Asia during the Middle Ages, with an estimated death toll between 75 and 200 million people. The plague was responsible for three other pandemics and epidemics in history; the Plague of Justinian in late antiquity (541-549), and a third outbreak in the 19th and 20th centuries, which killed 12 million people primarily in India and China.

First reported in 1981, HIV/AIDS spread through Africa, and to other parts of the world, reaching a peak of 2 million deaths per year from 2004 to 2005. Since then, this number has decreased 69% due to advancements in medication and public health initiatives that stop the infection from progressing. Although the number of AIDS-related deaths has decreased, the disease has still claimed between 27 and 48 million lives worldwide.

The New World smallpox was a disease that didn’t discriminate. The epidemic ravaged native American populations, killing millions of people; the rich, the poor, the young, the old in the 1500s and 1600s. According to WHO, the symptoms of smallpox were gruesome: high fever, vomiting and mouth sores, followed by fluid-filled lesions on the whole body. Death would come suddenly, often within 2 weeks, and survivors could be left with permanent harms such as blindness and infertility.

(50 – 100 million people)

The Spanish flu is often referred to as the first true pandemic, as increased global connectivity in the 20th century led to the rapid spread of the disease. The plague emerged in two phases: the first phase, known as the “three-day fever,” appeared without warning. When the disease surfaced again, it was far more severe.

Cases of novel coronavirus (nCoV) were first detected in China in December 2019, with the virus spreading rapidly to other countries across the world. While Covid-19 may share similarities with the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920 from an outbreak perspective, projections of the death toll indicated that it would rank among the deadliest disease outbreaks in history.