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Asked by anon-185981 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 6 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-186807.
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Danny Ward answered on 6 Nov 2018:
The worst was the Black Death from 1331 to 1353 in Europe. It was caaused by yersinia pestis, a bacteria more commonly known as the plague. It managed to kill up to 200 million people or 60 % of the entire population….pretty scary looking back on those numbers now!
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Verity Hill answered on 6 Nov 2018:
There are two big contenders for worst epidemic: the black death and the Spanish flu, which both killed around 100-200 million people. The black death killed 30-60% of Europe’s population, and the Spanish flu killed about 5% of the world’s population. The black death in particular also led to serious cultural changes because so many people died.
The Black Death is the name for a specific outbreak of the Plague in 1343, which is caused by a bacteria. At the time, we think it lived in rodent species (like rats, mice and rabbits) in Eastern and Central Asia, and it was brought to Europe through the Silk Road, a major trade route linking China and Europe, as well as on trade ships. There have been lots of major outbreaks of the plague (including the big plague outbreak in London in 1665 which was only ended by the great fire of London in 1666!), and there continue to be plague outbreaks every year in countries like Madagascar, but these are much smaller and kill far fewer people. You can treat plague with antibiotics!
The Spanish Flu was in 1918 (so exactly 100 years ago!) and was caused by the Flu virus. After the end of World War One, there was a lot of people moving around the world, with all the soldiers going home. Also, lots of people were not healthy because of food shortages. Most people that died died because they got bacterial pneumonia, a lung infection that happens when your immune system (your body’s defence system against bugs) is trying to tackle another enemy. These days we wouldn’t expect as many people to die because we have antibiotics to treat this lung infection, but a lot of people are still very worried about a new flu epidemic that would kill a lot of people.
As a side note: the Spanish flu didn’t start in Spain, it probably started in Mexico, but the Spanish were neutral in world war one and were the first people to report cases because they weren’t worried about giving their enemies important information!
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Trystan Leng answered on 6 Nov 2018:
Verity and Danny have given great answers – either the Black Death outbreak of the fourteenth century or the Spanish flu outbreak of the early 20th century!
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Raquel Medialdea Carrera answered on 8 Nov 2018:
I believe that, in addition to the Black Death and the Flu mentioned by Danny and Verity, in the last few years, I believe that the worst epidemic has been the Ebola Virus Epidemic. It started in 2014, and it had a massive impact worldwide becoming the largest epidemic of Ebola Virus in history.
Thousands of people died and there was the threat that it could become a pandemic. Luckily, international support and infection prevention measures helped to bring the outbreak under control :).
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