Coronavirus: 5 Pandemics from the past that you should know about

The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic due to its major outbreak around the globe. It has sparked a scare in people and everyone is awaiting its eradication. People have been taking all the possible measures to resist the contamination, but the spread is still on the rise. 

However, this is not the first pandemic to kill people across international borders. History has witnessed some of the most brutal diseases that have taken the lives of millions of people. Take a look.

1. The Spanish Flu 

The Spanish Flu was the most severe pandemic of the 20th century that spread worldwide between 1918 and 1919, according to CDC. It was caused by the H1N1 virus, with genes of avian origin, that killed at least 50 million people around the globe. CDC reported that the high mortality rate in healthy people between the ages of 20 and 40 was a unique feature of the pandemic. 

2. The Black Death 

The Black Death was a disturbing global pandemic that struck Asia and Europe in the mid-fourteenth century. The Bubonic Plague took the lives of nearly 75 to 200 million people since it outbreaks in 1346. 

3. Asian Flu 

Asian Flu pandemic was first identified in 1957 in East Asia and then it spread to countries worldwide, wrote CDC. The virus was identified and a vaccine was developed within a year to fight the deadly flu, but it claimed the lives of approximately 2 million people worldwide. 

4. Swine Flu 

H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, was the first pandemic of this century. It did not take as many lives as the other plagues, but it definitely stirred panic among civilians and medical professionals alike. Around 1 billion people contracted the disease but there were only 5,45,000 fatalities. 

5. HIV/AIDS Flu 

While coronavirus rules the chart of being the most infectious disease right now, one of the most dangerous pandemics is still on the rise- HIV/AIDs. First identified as a disease in 1981, people are still combating this pandemic. According to CDC, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has resulted in 65 million infected persons and 25 million deaths worldwide. WHO stated that more than 37 million people were suffering from HIV in 2018 and 7,70,000 were killed.