Historic pandemics

Historic pandemics

A young Bangladeshi girl infected with smallpox (1973). Thanks to the development of the smallpox vaccine, the disease was officially eradicated in 1979.A pandemic (or global epidemic) is a disease that affects people over an extensive geographical area.

Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, killed between 50 and 60% of Europe's population.[13]
The Black Death of 1347 to 1352 killed 25 million in Europe over 5 years (estimated to be between 25 and 50% of the populations of Europe, Asia, and Africa - the world population at the time was 500 million).
The introduction of smallpox, measles, and typhus to the areas of Central and South America by European explorers during the 15th and 16th centuries caused pandemics among the native inhabitants. Between 1518 and 1568 disease pandemics are said to have caused the population of Mexico to fall from 20 million to 3 million.[14]
The first European influenza epidemic occurred between 1556 and 1560, with an estimated mortality rate of 20%.[14]
Smallpox killed an estimated 60 million Europeans in the 18th century alone. Up to 30% of those infected, including 80% of the children under 5 years of age, died from the disease, and one third of the survivors went blind. [15]
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 (or the Spanish Flu) killed 25-50 million people (about 2% of world population of 1.7 billion).[16] Today Influenza kills about 250,000 to 500,000 worldwide each year.