50 Fun Facts About Pandemics

The word 'pandemic' comes from Greek roots meaning what?

Pan- means 'all, every' and demos 'people'; in Modern Greek it still means 'concerning all the people'.

Which is described as the deadliest pandemic in history?

The H1N1 outbreak infected about a third of the world, killing more people in 25 weeks than AIDS did in its first 25 years.

What is the term for a pandemic among non-human animals?

Rinderpest, a cattle disease, is the only other infection besides smallpox to have been eradicated.

Why is cancer not considered a pandemic despite killing many people?

A pandemic must be infectious, not merely widespread or deadly.

What does the WHO abbreviation PHEIC stand for?

It is the WHO's nearest equivalent to declaring a pandemic; COVID-19 held the status from January 2020 to May 2023.

Which disease was declared a PHEIC in 2014 despite only 482 cases the previous year?

The concern was that it might break out of its endemic areas; the status is reviewed regularly and still ongoing.

Where did the WHO open its Pandemic Hub in September 2021?

Its tools include AI that scans more than 35,000 data feeds for signs of emerging health threats.

In the WHO's old six-phase influenza scale, phase 1 meant what?

Phase 6 was a full pandemic; a WHO spokesperson confirmed in 2020 that the system is no longer used.

Reducing the basic reproduction number below 1 is the goal of which strategy?

China used it during COVID-19 by locking down entire cities.

Decreasing an epidemic's peak is popularly known as what?

The aim is to keep health services from being overwhelmed and buy time for vaccines and treatments.

The Plague of Athens of 430 BC has been identified from teeth as which disease?

University of Athens researchers analysed a mass grave beneath the city in 2006.

The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 AD was probably which disease?

Soldiers returning from the Near East brought it to Italy; it killed up to five million.

In which city did the Plague of Justinian supposedly kill 10,000 people a day?

The Byzantine chronicler Procopius gave the figure; the outbreak had begun in Egypt the year before.

The outbreak that began under Justinian in 541 is also known by what name?

It began in 541 and recurred in waves until the middle of the 8th century.

Roughly what share of London's population died in the Great Plague of 1665-66?

About 100,000 people died; it was one of more than 100 European plague epidemics after the Black Death.

Where did the 1817-1824 cholera pandemic begin?

Previously endemic to the Indian subcontinent, it spread to China, Java and the Caspian Sea before receding.

In which Chinese province did the third plague pandemic begin in 1855?

It reached every inhabited continent and killed at least 15 million, most of them in British India.

Which city saw the first plague outbreak in the United States, in 1900?

The outbreak lasted until 1904 during the third pandemic.

Who isolated the plague bacterium in Hong Kong in 1894?

Yersinia pestis is named after the Swiss-born French bacteriologist.

Which animals' fleas were found to spread plague in cities, enabling control measures?

The pandemic was judged over in 1959 when annual plague deaths fell below 200.

Where were the earliest probable cases of the 1918 flu documented?

Further cases followed in France, Germany and the UK that April.

Why did the 1918 flu become known as 'Spanish flu'?

Wartime censors elsewhere suppressed bad news, so Spain looked like the epicentre.

Which US Army training ground helped spread the 1918 flu as troops shipped out?

The disease reached the Western Front by mid-April 1918.

Which age group suffered unusually high mortality in the 1918 flu?

Most flu outbreaks hit the very young and very old hardest instead.

Which Pacific territory recorded zero flu deaths in 1918 thanks to a strict quarantine?

Governor John Martin Poyer sealed it from all ships; neighbouring Western Samoa lost over 20% of its people.

What did British soldiers call the 1918 flu in spring that year?

Germans said Flandern-Fieber; the French briefly called it American flu before switching to Spanish.

In what year was the 1918 virus's genetic sequence finally determined?

Researchers used historic tissue samples to reconstruct the H1N1 strain.

The 1889-1890 'Russian flu' may actually have been caused by what kind of virus?

Several researchers in the early 2020s pointed to human coronavirus OC43.

In which Central Asian city was the 1889 pandemic conventionally first reported?

It was the first pandemic to spread not just across a region but worldwide, helped by railways and steamships.

The 1957-58 Asian flu was caused by which influenza subtype?

A decade later a reassorted H3N2 strain caused the Hong Kong flu.

Which microbiologist foresaw the 1957 pandemic and kick-started vaccine production?

His team worked round the clock for five days to show the virus was antigenically new, then predicted a fall epidemic.

On what date was the Hong Kong flu outbreak first recorded in the colony?

It affected about 15% of Hong Kong's population in six weeks but with mild symptoms.

The Hong Kong flu virus descended from H2N2 through which genetic process?

Genes from multiple subtypes reassort to form a new virus.

Where was the first identified human case of the 2009 swine flu?

The rural Veracruz town was the start of the third recent H1N1 pandemic.

What was unusual about whom the 2009 H1N1 virus infected?

Unlike most flu strains, it did not disproportionately infect the elderly.

Between which dates did the WHO formally declare the swine flu pandemic?

A German deputy later accused firms of a 'campaign of panic' to push vaccine sales.

When was the last naturally occurring case of smallpox diagnosed?

The WHO certified global eradication in 1980, the only human disease to achieve it.

Who was the last person to die of smallpox, in 1978?

The medical photographer caught it from a research lab at the University of Birmingham Medical School.

Who introduced the modern smallpox vaccine in 1796?

He demonstrated that cowpox protected humans from the disease.

Which aristocrat promoted smallpox inoculation in England after seeing it in Turkey?

She wrote detailed accounts in her letters and championed the practice on her return in 1718.

Roughly how many people did smallpox kill in the 20th century?

In 18th-century Europe it killed about 400,000 a year and caused a third of all blindness.

Which Australian microbiologist led the final smallpox campaign in the Horn of Africa?

Civil war, famine and few roads made Ethiopia and Somalia the hardest places to finish the job.

What does 'quarantine' literally mean in the Venetian language?

Ships were isolated for that long during the Black Death before passengers could land.

Which city founded the first lazaret, on a small island, in 1403?

Venice had already appointed three guardians of public health in 1348.

Which English village imposed a cordon sanitaire on itself during the 1665 plague?

The church there records 273 victims over the 14 months the plague ran its course.

Who linked cholera to contaminated drinking water in 1854?

He had proposed a microbial origin for epidemic cholera as early as 1849.

Who identified Vibrio cholerae under the microscope as the cause of cholera in 1883?

Filippo Pacini had actually isolated the bacterium in 1854, but his results were little known.

How many cholera pandemics had been recognised by the early 2020s?

The seventh began in 1961 and was still ongoing in the 2020s.

In which year was HIV/AIDS first identified as a disease?

It has since killed an estimated 40 million people; there is still no vaccine, but antiretroviral therapy holds it in check.

Ice cores from the Swiss Alps show a drop in which pollutant during the Black Death years?

The reduction from 1349 to 1353 indicates mining and economic activity collapsed.