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HIV may be the most dangerous virus in the modern world. “This is still the most deadly virus”said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist and spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. An estimated 36 million people have died from HIV since the virus was first identified in the 1980s.
Powerful antiretroviral drugs can help people live with HIV for years. But the disease continues to hit low- and middle-income countries, where 95% of new infections are concentrated. One in 20 adults in sub-Saharan Africa is HIV positive, according to the WHO.
Smallpox virus
Smallpox virus. (Photo: Live Science).
In 1980, the World Health Assembly declared smallpox eradicated. But before that, humanity had spent thousands of years battling smallpox, a disease that killed one in three people who contracted it. Those who survived were left with pockmarked scars and even blindness.
Mortality rates from smallpox were much higher in non-European populations. Historians estimate, for example, that 90 percent of the indigenous people of the Americas died from the smallpox virus introduced by Europeans. In the 20th century alone, smallpox killed 300 million people.
Ghost virus
Hanta virus. (Photo: Live Science).
Hantavirus pneumonic syndrome (HPS) first gained widespread attention in the United States in 1993, when a healthy young man and his fiancée died within days of developing shortness of breath. A few months later, health officials isolated the hantavirus from deer mice living in an infected person’s home. More than 600 Americans have been infected with hantavirus, and 36 percent have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hantaviruses are not transmitted from person to person. Patients are infected through contact with the feces of infected rats. Another strain of hantavirus caused an outbreak in the early 1950s during the Korean War, according to a 2010 study published in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews. More than 3,000 soldiers were infected, and about 12 percent died.
Seasonal influenza virus
Seasonal flu virus. (Photo: Live Science).
During flu season, about 500,000 people worldwide can die from the virus, according to the WHO. The deadliest flu pandemic was the Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and infected 40% of the world’s population, killing an estimated 50 million people. “I think something similar to the 1918 pandemic could happen again. If it finds a way to get into the human body, the new strain could easily pass from person to person, making people very sick and causing a big problem.”Muhlberger expressed concern.
Dengue fever
Dengue virus. (Photo: Live Science).
Dengue fever first appeared in the Philippines and Thailand in the 1950s and has since spread throughout the tropics and subtropics around the world. 40% of the world’s population lives in areas where dengue is endemic. This mosquito-borne disease is expected to spread as the planet warms.
Dengue fever infects 50 to 100 million people a year, according to the WHO. Although the mortality rate from dengue is lower than that of some other viruses, there is currently no vaccine to prevent the disease. Large-scale clinical trials of a vaccine developed by French drugmaker Sanofi have shown promising results.
Rotavirus
Virus rota. (Ảnh: Live Science).
Rotavirus is a cause of severe diarrhea in infants and young children. It can spread rapidly through human feces. Children in developed countries rarely die from rotavirus, but the disease remains a major cause of death in many developing countries. The WHO estimates that 453,000 children under the age of 5 died from rotavirus in 2008. Two vaccines have been introduced, which have significantly reduced hospitalizations and deaths.
Disease X
On the list “death”, “disease X” is what WHO calls dangerous pathogens that have not yet been identified.
Experts warn the next pandemic could be caused by “disease X” cause. “Disease X” could be worse than the Black Death – the plague that killed 75 million people worldwide.
WHO always considers “Disease X” is the “hidden enemy” need to be prevented by medical, health and environmental recommendations.
According to scientists, there are 1.67 million unknown viruses in the world. Of these, 827,000 can be transmitted from animals to humans. The risk of “disease X” appearing is said to increase as the world’s population explodes and the natural environment is destroyed.
Human habit of eating wild animals is also said to be the reason why “disease X” has become a concern of WHO.
According to VnExpress/Dan Viet
