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Asked by anon-251295 on 22 Apr 2020.
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Fiona McLean answered on 22 Apr 2020:
In the UK, the disease killing the most people is dementia. At the moment, it’s still killing more people that COVID-19. But it depends what country you live in. In some African counties, malaria is a really big problem as well as HIV/AIDS.
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Varun Ramaswamy answered on 22 Apr 2020:
A heart disease called Ischemic heart disease is the world’s leading cause of death. Ischemia means having a type of stroke and strokes can be very dangerous especially because they can happen anywhere at anytime and when they do, you need to act quick.
Not surprisingly, the second most deadly disease in the world is Stroke!
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Donna MacCallum answered on 22 Apr 2020:
Depends on the country and availability of treatment – Ebola has one of the highest fatality rates, but vaccines are produced.
However, heart disease and stroke kill over 10 million people every year (but not an infectious disease).
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Philip Denniff answered on 23 Apr 2020:
This is an interesting question because it has many answers depending on what you are counting. In terms of pandemics the Black Death (1347 to 1351) had the highest global mortality rate, provided by mortality rate you mean proportion of the population. In total about 100 million died which represented about 25% of the global population. The Americas and southern Africa escaped the pandemic because there was no contact between these areas and Eurasia. The other big endemic disease is malaria which killed 800,000 people annually at the turn of the century and has probably killed more people in total than any other disease throughout history. So why is Covid19 so scary compared to these? It is new, it is unknown but we are learning fast how to control and deal with it, but it will still be a scary ride.
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Freya Harrison answered on 23 Apr 2020:
I think this question can be answered in two ways. One is “which diseases causes the most deaths across the population?” and the other answers have covered those nicely. But the other way to look at the question is “which diseases give you the biggest probability of dying if you get them?” And that gives different answers. Some diseases which have the highest risk of dying if you get them are prion diseases like Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (that was the human disease that resulted from BSE or mad cow disease), some genetic disorders, and infectious diseases caused by microbes called protozoans. These are single-celled creatures that have a nucleus, unlike bacteria. They cause diseases including African sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis, which attacks your internal organs.
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Robert Ives answered on 27 Apr 2020:
In terms of which diseases are ‘the most dangerous once you are infected’, rabies has a virtually 100% death rate (once you get it, you time is up). I seem to remember there has only ever been one person reported to have survived rabies. Fortunately there are vaccines to protect against rabies and many of the other really scary diseases. In terms of total numbers of people who have died, the biggest recorded ‘killers’ in history are malaria and the flu. In terms of what is killing the most people ‘now’, heart disease.
Comments
anon-251295 commented on :
Thank you. They all answered my question really well.
Kelly commented on :
Great answers, everyone! I would add smallpox into the mix as one of the deadliest diseases in human history. Smallpox has been around for about 3,000 years. In the last one hundred years of its existence, it is estimated to have killed half a billion people. About one-third of unimmunized people who were infected with smallpox died. Many who survived were left permanently scarred or blind. Fortunately, smallpox was eradicated following a global vaccination campaign. It is the only human infectious disease to hold this distinction. On May 8, the world celebrated 40 years since the eradication of smallpox.