Sub-Saharan Africa--accounting for nearly half of infectious disease deaths globally--will remain the most vulnerable region. The death rates for many diseases, including HIV/AIDS and malaria, exceed those in all other regions.
Tuberculosis remains one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, second only to COVID-19, and drug resistant TB strains are still a major concern.
Scientists estimate that more than 6 out of every 10 known infectious diseases in people can be spread from animals, and 3 out of every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals.
cancer. dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. advanced lung, heart, kidney and liver disease. stroke and other neurological diseases, including motor neurone disease and multiple sclerosis.
Perhaps the most notorious of all infectious diseases, the bubonic and pneumonic plagues are believed to be the cause of the Black Death that rampaged through Asia, Europe and Africa in the 14th century killing an estimated 50 million people.
“Two or three of the major STIs [in humans] have come from animals. We know, for example, that gonorrhoea came from cattle to humans. Syphilis also came to humans from cattle or sheep many centuries ago, possibly sexually”.
In developing countries, nearly 50% of the disease burden is caused by deaths under age 15, compared to 10% in developed countries. The five biggest infectious killers in the world and in Africa are acute respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis.
The first well-recorded European outbreak of what is now known as syphilis occurred in 1494 when it broke out among French troops besieging Naples in the Italian War of 1494–98. The disease may have originated from the Columbian Exchange.
He said Chlamydia pneumoniae was originally an animal pathogen that crossed the species barrier to humans and had adapted to the point where it could now be transmitted between humans. "What we think now is that Chlamydia pneumoniae originated from amphibians such as frogs," he said.
Gonorrhea can be traced back to the earliest records of the human race even if Albert Neisser first described gonococcus in 1879. The Romans, Jews and Arabs all have documents referring to gonorrhea and each society had their own description of symptoms and treatment.
Rabies. Rabies, one of the oldest known infectious diseases, is nearly 100% fatal and continues to cause tens of thousands of human deaths globally (1).
Epstein Barr virus (EBV) is a herpesvirus in which over 90% of the population worldwide has been infected.
Cholera, bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza are some of the most brutal killers in human history. And outbreaks of these diseases across international borders, are properly defined as pandemic, especially smallpox, which throughout history, has killed between 300-500 million people in its 12,000 year existence.
The most distinctive feature of this viral family is genome size: coronaviruses have the largest genomes among all RNA viruses, including those RNA viruses with segmented genomes.
Congenital deafness. Cystic fibrosis. Beta thalassemia. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)
Cancer. Cancer refers to the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. This can affect almost any organ or tissue including lungs, breast, colon, skin and ovaries. Due to the complexity of the disease and the variety of forms it can take, developing a cure has proven difficult.
Two infectious diseases have successfully been eradicated: smallpox in humans, and rinderpest in ruminants. There are four ongoing programs, targeting the human diseases poliomyelitis (polio), yaws, dracunculiasis (Guinea worm), and malaria.
Humans don't have a monopoly on sexually transmitted infections. Oysters get herpes, rabbits get syphilis, dolphins get genital warts. But chlamydia — a pared-down, single-celled bacterium that acts like a virus — has been especially successful, infecting everything from frogs to fish to parakeets.
STDs have been around since the dawn of humanity. Herpes may have first infected our ancestors more than a million years ago. Syphilis has been around since at least the Middle Ages. It's possible STDs are what encouraged humans to stick to monogamous pairings.