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Created: 06/16/2023 09:54 am
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From plague to cholera: A pandemic describes the sudden and uncontrolled spread of a disease that transcends national borders. Due to the coronavirus crisis, the word was suddenly on everyone’s lips.
1 / 13 The Attic Plague (430 to 426 BC): The first documented pandemic in history developed in Ethiopia before reaching Athens via Egypt and Libya. Around 200,000 residents of the Greek city lost their lives as a result of the disease – almost a third of the city’s residents. © IMAGO
2 / 13 The Antonine Plague (165-180): The Romans fought many successful wars, but the Antonine Plague severely weakened the empire. It is estimated that around ten million people lost their lives within 15 years. The trigger should have been smallpox. © IMAGO/Matthias Oesterle
3 / 13 The Black Death (1347-1352): The plague was considered the worst enemy in the Middle Ages. Between a third and half of the European population at that time perished as a result of the Black Death. The pandemic first appeared in Central Asia and reached Europe via the Silk Road, among other things. © IMAGO
4 / 13 Smallpox (18th to 20th centuries): Frederick the Great, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were among the countless people who contracted smallpox. Around 500,000 people died between the 18th and 20th centuries due to the smallpox pandemic. © IMAGO
5 / 13 Cholera (1817-1990): There have been a total of seven cholera pandemics in world history. Parts of Asia and East Africa were initially affected, later Europe was also affected. In 1892 Hamburg was hit hard, with 8,600 dead. © IMAGO
6 / 13 Spanish flu (1918-1920): The Spanish flu killed around 50 million people worldwide. The trigger was a particularly contagious type A H1N1 virus. Around a third of the world’s population is said to have been infected. © dpa
7 / 13 Asian Flu (1957-1958): The Asian flu spread from China to Hong Kong, Singapore and Borneo, and then found its way to Australia, America and Europe. For two years she kept the world in suspense. © IMAGO
8 / 13 Hong Kong Flu (1968-1969): A follow-up to the Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu also spread rapidly around the world in the late 1960s. Around 30,000 people died in Germany. © IMAGO
9 / 13 AIDS (1981 to present): As a result of HIV infection, people with AIDS experience a destruction of the immune system. The peak of the pandemic occurred in the 2000s, when two million people a year died from the virus. © IMAGO
10 / 13 SARS (2002–2003): The SARS pandemic marked not only the first pandemic of the 21st century, but also the first emergence of a SARS coronavirus. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Canada were particularly affected. © dpa
11 / 13 Swine flu (2009 – 2010): The A/H1N1 influenza virus was responsible for what is popularly known as swine flu. In Germany there were 258 deaths. © IMAGO
12 / 13 Ebola (2014 – 2016): The name of the Ebola fever goes back to the river of the same name in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the first known outbreak occurred in 1976. From 2014 to 2016, the worst Ebola epidemic to date occurred in West Africa. © IMAGO
13 / 13 Covid-19 pandemic (since November 2019): On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the spread of the coronavirus to be a pandemic. The virus first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan and then spread rapidly around the world. © IMAGO
