• Question: How did the most famous epidemic start?

    Asked by anon-185981 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 6 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      The most famous is probably the black death of 1331 to 1353. It was caused by a bacteria called yersinia pestis also known as the plague. It was carried by fleas which lived on rats. These rats spread across Europe on merchant ships and so they spread the disease. This lead to the death of up to 200 million people or 60% of the European population at the time!

    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      I would say this year that the most famous epidemic is Spanish Flu because that happened exactly 100 years ago!
      After World War One, lots of people were moving across the world to get home after fighting. At some point, the flu virus crossed from (probably) a pig into a person (probably in Mexico, but it’s not quite clear), and then in the bad conditions in refugee camps and trenches it spread very quickly. People were also not eating a lot, so they were more vulnerable to disease because their bodies defences were not working at full force.
      It ended up killing about 120 million people (at least!) which was about 5% of the world’s population at the time.

    • Photo: Trystan Leng

      Trystan Leng answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      Danny and Verity both give great answers!

    • Photo: Raquel Medialdea Carrera

      Raquel Medialdea Carrera answered on 7 Nov 2018:

      The most famous epidemic of the recent years… was probably the Ebola Virus epidemic in West Africa during 2014-2015.
      That epidemic started in Guinea with the first human case being a 3 year old boy. Ebola can grow and multiply in bats. That is why, when this 3 year old boy was playing in a tree full with bats, he got infected with Ebola, and then his mother, then his brothers, and then that is how it started spreading the largest epidemic of Ebola in history.

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