Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, humans have been combating viruses. For some of them, vaccines and antiviral medications have enabled us to widely control the spread of infections.
As indicated in a Live Science report, the said treatments "have helped people recover from certain illnesses." It has been eliminated for one disease like smallpox, clearing out the world of new cases.
Nonetheless, it still needs a long way from combatting viruses. These infections have jumped from animals and humans in the past years, resulting in major outbreaks and claiming the lives of thousands of people.
Specifically, the viral strain that brought the 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak kills up to 90 percent of the people it is infecting, which has made it the deadliest member of the Ebola family.
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A vile of smallpox vaccine January 20, 2003, at the Tully Clinic at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. The vaccine containing the live virus called vaccinia is given using a bifurcated, or two-pronged, needle.
Three of the Worst Killer Viruses
There are other viruses out there though that are equally fatal, and some are even deadlier. Some viruses that include COVID-19 that are currently driving outbreaks worldwide have lower fatality rates, although they still posture a serious threat to public health as there is no means yet to combat the said virus.
Here are three of the worst killer viruses based on the list from the said Live Science report. Such illnesses are considered fatal based on the likelihood an individual will die if he is infected with one of them:
1. Marburg virus
The World Health Organization specified that the Marburg virus was initially detected by scientists during the late 1960s when small outbreaks took place among laboratory workers in Germany who had exposure to monkeys imported from Uganda.
Symptoms of this virus are akin to the Ebola virus in that both viruses can result in hemorrhagic fever. This means that infected individuals develop high fevers and bleeding in the entire body that can lead to shock, organ failure, and even death, Mayo Clinic reported.
2. HIV
Approximately 30 million people have died from HIV since the disease was first identified in the early 1980s. According to infectious disease physician and spokesman for the Infectious Disease Society of America, Dr. Amesh Adalja, infectious disease has taken the biggest toll on mankind.
A separate Live Science report specified that powerful antiviral drugs have made it "possible for people to still live for years with the virus.
However, the infection continues to distress many low- and middle-income nations, where 95 percent of new infections take place.
According to the World Health Organization, almost one in every 25 adults in the entire WHO African region is positive with HIV.
This means that there are more than two-thirds of the people living with HIV all over the world, the WHO reported. Last year, there were around 680,000 deaths recorded globally.
3. Smallpox
The World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox in 1980. However, before that declaration, humans combatted smallpox for thousands of years, and the disease claimed the life of one in every three of those the virus-infected, a BBC report said.
Smallpox survivors indeed recovered from the disease but with deep, permanent scars and, more often than not, blindness.
In populations outside of Europe, where there was little contact in people with the virus before visitors brought the disease to their regions, death rates were much higher.
For instance, historians approximate that smallpox, first brought by a European explorer, claimed the lives of 90 percent of the native populations of the Americas. During the 20th century alone, smallpox claimed the lives of 300 million people.
Related information about the deadliest viruses on Earth is shown on Interesting Engineering's YouTube video below:
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