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Asian Flu
The Asian flu outbreak caused an estimated one million to two million deaths worldwide and is generally considered to have been the least severe of the three influenza pandemics of the 20th century. -
Hong Kong Flu
The "Hong Kong Flu" causes the last flu pandemic. It was caused by an H3N2 virus and killed some 34,000 Americans. The relatively low death toll is thought to have been due to two factors. First, the virus contained the N2 protein humans had been exposed to before. Second, an H3 virus circulated around the turn of the century, giving some immune protection to elderly people who had caught the flu back then. -
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AIDS/HIV
Since its emergence in the 1980s, HIV/AIDS has infected 60 million people and caused an estimated 30 million deaths. The virus hijacks and eventually breaks down the immune system, resulting in a condition called AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). Without a properly working immune system, people with AIDS are left vulnerable to other, often deadly, infections. -
SARS
The SARS outbreak. SARS stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome, caused by the SARS coronavirus. It first infected people in late 2002 in China, and within weeks spread to 37 countries through air travel. The virus infected 8,000 people worldwide, about 800 of whom died. -
Swine Flu/H1N1
The virus was first identified in Mexico in April 2009 and was also known as Mexican flu. It became known as swine flu because the virus closely resembled known influenza viruses that cause illness in pigs. -
Malaria
This mosquito-borne disease malaria continues to pose a global problem. There's no vaccine for it, and in many parts of the world the parasite that causes it has developed resistance to a number of malaria drugs. In 2010, an estimated 219 million people worldwide were infected by the disease and 660,000 died. The disease is widespread in tropical regions such as Africa, Asia and the Americas, with about 90 percent of cases occurring in the African region. -
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis has been traced back as far as 17,000 years ago, but is still not entirely under control today. Caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, tuberculosis is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide due to a single infectious agent. In the past two decades, the tuberculosis death rate dropped almost by half. In 2012, 8.6 million people fell ill with it, and 1.3 million died. More than 95 percent of tuberculosis deaths occur in low and mid income countries. -
Measles
In 2012, roughly 122,000 people worldwide died from the measles, a highly contagious disease caused by a virus. -
Ebola
The most widespread epidemic of Ebola virus disease in history began in 2013 and continued for over two years, resulting in loss of life and social disruption, mainly in three West African countries. -
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Zika Virus
The Zika virus is spread normally through bites from two types of infected mosquitoes, the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. No evidence currently points to sexual transmission from women to their partners. Although evidence does link Zika to sexual transmission from men to their partners. The virus is of special concern for pregnant women because Zika can be transmitted perinatally and lead to severe birth defects. -
Lyme Disease
Lyme disease is one of the fastest-growing vector-borne infections in the United States. its estimated that there are over 329,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year here in the US.
