Paris: The pandemic of the new coronavirus, which will soon surpass the mark of one million deaths, is priced higher than other fashionable viruses, its devastation to date is much less than the Spanish flu of a century ago.
As the pandemic continues, the death toll of an AFP count is temporary, but it provides a baseline for comparing the new coronavirus with that of other viruses, beyond and present.
21st century virus. SARS-CoV-2, the virus guilty of COVID-19 infection, the deadliest virus of the 21st century.
In 2009, the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, was a global pandemic and left an official death toll of 18,500.
This was then revised upwards through the medical journal The Lancet, at between 151,700 and 575,400 deaths.
In 2002-2003, sarS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus that emerged from China was the first coronavirus to generate fears worldwide, but killed only 774 more people in the last death toll.
Influenza epidemics. Covid-19’s record compares to that of deadly seasonal influenza, although it rarely appears in headlines.
Globally, seasonal influenza is guilty of approximately 650,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the 20th century, two major non-seasonal influenza pandemics, Asian influenza in 1957-58 and Hong Kong influenza in 1968-70, killed about one million people, according to upcoming reports.
The two pandemics occurred in other cases of Covid-19, before globalization intensified and accelerated economic exchanges and thus the immediate spread of fatal viruses.
The biggest crisis of trendy pandemics to date, the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, also known as Spanish influenza, wiped out some 50 million more people, according to a study published in the 2000s.
Tropical viruses. The death toll from the new coronavirus is already well above the number of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which was first known in 1976 and killed about 2,300 more people in its last outbreak in 2018-20.
In four decades, periodic Ebola epidemics have killed some 15,000 people, all in Africa.
Ebola has a much higher mortality rate than Covid-19: about 50% of other inflamed people die from it, and this rate is more than 90% in some epidemics.
But Ebola is less contagious than other viral diseases, at least because it is airborne but transmitted through direct and close contact.
Dengue, which can also be lethal, has a lower cost. This influenza disease transmitted through the bite of an inflamed mosquito has been present for two decades, however, it causes only a few thousand deaths consistent with the year.
Other viral epidemics. AIDS is going through the deadliest fashion epidemic: nearly 33 million people around the world have died from the disease affecting the immune system.
First detected in 1981, no effective vaccine was found.
But retroviral medications, when taken regularly, well prevent the disease and, in particular, the threat of contamination.
This remedy has helped reduce the death toll from its peak from 1. 7 million deaths in 2004 to 690,000 in 2009, according to UNAIDS.
Hepatitis B and C viruses also have a high number of deaths, killing about 1. 3 million people a year, most commonly in poor countries.
Main data: World Health Organization (WHO).
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