12 Deadliest Viruses on Earth

Pending review by Darmankade medical team

Humans They have been fighting viruses for thousands of years. The new Covid-19 virus is no exception to this rule. In the case of some viral diseases, vaccines and antiviral drugs have provided us with the possibility of preventing the widespread spread of infections and helping patients recover. We succeeded in eradicating a disease called smallpox and freed the world from new cases.

However, we are far from winning the fight against viruses, including the corona virus. In recent decades, several viruses have been transmitted from animals to humans and while having a significant prevalence, they have killed thousands of people. The strain of Ebola virus that broke out in West Africa in 2016-2014 killed 90% of those infected, making it the deadliest member of the Ebola family.

But there are other viruses that are just as or even more deadly. Currently, a number of viruses, including the new corona virus, have spread around the world, and although they have a lower death rate, they are still considered a serious threat to public health, because there is still no means to deal with them. Corona test registration

Here are 12 of the deadliest viruses, based on the likelihood of a person being killed if infected with one of them, the number of people killed, or whether they are considered a growing threat or not.

1. Marburg virus

Scientists identified Marburg virus when a small epidemic occurred in 1967 among laboratory workers in Germany who were in contact with infected monkeys imported from Uganda. Marburg virus is similar to Ebola in that it can cause hemorrhagic fever; This means that infected people have high fever and bleeding throughout their body, which can lead to shock, organ failure, and death.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the mortality rate in the first epidemic was 25%, but in the 1998-2000 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as in the 2005 outbreak in Angola, it was over 80%.

2. Ebola virus

The first known outbreak of Ebola in humans occurred in 1976 simultaneously in the Republic of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ebola is spread through contact with blood or other body fluids or tissues of infected people or animals. According to Elke Muhlberger, an Ebola virus expert and associate professor of microbiology at Boston University, in Live Science magazine, the death rates of these known Ebola species are very different. One of the species, Ebola Reston, does not even make a person sick. But the mortality rate of the Bundibugyo species is 50%, and according to the World Health Organization, this rate is 71% for the Sudanese species.

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, the spreading outbreak of this disease in West Africa began in early 2014 and is the largest and most complex outbreak to date.

3. rabies

Although the introduction of a rabies vaccine for domestic animals in the 1920s has made the disease extremely rare in developed countries, the disease remains a serious problem in India and parts of Africa. According to Malberger, "This virus damages the brain, and it's a really bad disease." He said: "We have the rabies vaccine and we have antibodies that work against rabies, so if someone is bitten by a rabid animal, we are able to treat this person." However, he stated, "If there is no treatment, there is a 100% chance of death." 4- HIV (AIDS)

In today's world, HIV may be the deadliest virus out there. According to Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, "this virus is still considered one of the biggest killers." An estimated 32 million people have died from HIV since the disease was first introduced in the early 1980s. According to Adalja, "The infectious disease that currently causes the greatest death to mankind is HIV."

Strong antiviral drugs have made it possible for people to live with HIV for years. But the disease still afflicts many low- and middle-income countries, where 95% of new HIV infections occur. Nearly 1 in 25 adults in the African region are HIV positive, accounting for more than two-thirds of people living with HIV worldwide.

5. Smallpox

The World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox in 1980. But before that, humans had been battling smallpox for thousands of years, and the disease killed about 1 in 3 people infected, leaving survivors with deep, permanent, and often blind wounds.

Death rates were far higher in populations outside of Europe, where people had little contact with the virus until travelers brought it to those areas. For example, historians estimate that 90% of the Native American population died from smallpox brought by European explorers. Smallpox has killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone.

According to Dr. Adalja, "Smallpox was something that imposed a heavy burden on the planet, and it was not only death but also blindness, and this was the reason why efforts were made to eradicate it from the earth."

6. Hantavirus

Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) first gained widespread attention in 1993, with the death of a healthy young man and his fiancee in the Four Corners region of the United States who died after several days of shortness of breath. A few months later, health officials isolated hantavirus from deer mice living in the home of an infected person. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 600 people in the United States have contracted HPS and 36 percent have died from the disease.

This virus is not transmitted from one person to another, but people are infected by exposure to droplets from infected mice.

According to an article published in 2010 in the Clinical Microbiology Review, before A different hantavirus caused an epidemic in the early 1950s, during the Korean War. More than 3,000 soldiers were infected and about 12% died.

While the virus was new to Western medicine after its discovery in the United States, researchers later found that Navajo Indian medicine described a similar disease, and attributed it to rats.

7. Influenza

According to the World Health Organization, during an influenza outbreak, up to 500,000 people worldwide will die from the disease. But sometimes, with the emergence of a new type of flu, a pandemic (global outbreak) will result in a faster spread of the disease and often more deaths.

The deadliest influenza pandemic, sometimes called the Spanish flu, began in 1918 and sickened up to 40% of the world's population, killing about 50 million people.

Mahlberger said: "I think there is a possibility that something like the 1918 flu outbreak will happen again. With the emergence of a new strain of influenza in the human population that can easily be transmitted between humans and cause severe disease, we will face a big problem."

8. Dengue virus

Dengue virus first appeared in the Philippines and Thailand in the 1950s and has since spread throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Currently, about 40% of the world's population lives in areas where dengue is endemic, and there is a possibility that the disease will spread further - with its vector mosquitoes - as the world warms.

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, dengue affects 50 to 100 million people annually. Although the mortality rate of dengue fever is less than some other viruses, at 2.5%, this virus can cause an Ebola-like disease called dengue hemorrhagic fever, and if left untreated, the death rate can be as high as 20%. Mahlberger said in this regard: "We really need to think more about the dengue virus because this virus is a real threat to us."

According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States), the dengue vaccine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019 for use in children aged 9 to 16 years living in dengue outbreak areas who have a confirmed history of virus infection. In some countries, there is an approved vaccine for ages 9-45, but again, recipients must have had a confirmed case of dengue in the past. People who have not previously been infected with the virus may be at risk of developing severe dengue if they receive the vaccine.

See more: infectious disease doctor

9. Rotavirus

Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrheal disease in infants and young children, and there are currently two vaccines to protect children against this virus. The virus can spread rapidly through what researchers call the fecal-oral route (meaning small particles of feces are ingested).

Although children in developed countries rarely die from rotavirus infection, the disease is a killer in developing countries where hydration treatments are not widely available. According to World Health Organization estimates, 453,000 children under 5 years of age worldwide died from rotavirus infection in 2008.

10. Coronavirus Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS first appeared in 2002 in Guangdong province in southern China. Probably, this virus first started from bats and before infecting humans, it was transferred to nocturnal mammals called civet. After the outbreak began in China, SARS spread to 26 countries around the world, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 770 people within two years.

This disease causes fever, chills, and body aches, and often progresses to pneumonia (a severe condition in which the lungs become inflamed and filled with pus). SARS has a fatality rate of about 9.9%, and so far has no approved treatment or vaccine. However, according to the CDC, no new cases of SARS have been reported since the early 2000s.

11. Covid-2019 or SARS-CoV-2

SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the same large family of viruses as the SARS coronavirus, also known as coronaviruses. The 2019 coronavirus was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The origin of this virus, like SARS-CoV, is probably a bat, and before infecting people, it passes through an intermediary animal.

Since its appearance, this virus has infected tens of thousands of people in China and thousands of other people around the world. The ongoing outbreak has resulted in widespread quarantine of Wuhan and surrounding cities, travel restrictions to and from infected countries, and a global effort to develop diagnostics, treatment, and vaccines.

This disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, called COVID-19, has a mortality rate of about 2.3%. It seems that elderly people or people with underlying diseases are more susceptible to severe disease or complications. Common symptoms include fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath, and the disease can lead to pneumonia in severe cases.

To diagnose the probability of corona for free and online, take part in the corona test at the clinic.

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12. MERS-CoV

The virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, led to a 2012 outbreak in Saudi Arabia and another in 2015 in South Korea. The MERS virus belongs to the same family of viruses as SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 and, like them, probably originated from bats. Before being transmitted to humans, this disease infects camels and causes fever, cough and shortness of breath in infected people. MERS often progresses to severe pneumonia, and with a fatality rate of 30 to 40 percent, it is the deadliest known animal-to-human virus. Like SARS-CoV, MERS has no approved treatment or vaccine.

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