• Question: what is the most dangerous disease and what is the reason for it being so dangerous? when did it first originate and why?

    Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Sakshi Sharda

      Sakshi Sharda answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Hi bellanash123

      A lot of dangerous diseases have existed and still do today. It would be hard to pin point one of them! For instance, there was small pox which has got eradicated in 1970s. This is one of the deadliest ones know to humankind which leads to rashes and papules all over the skin and is very infectious, painful and has led to many deaths. Its also called black pestilence.

      Then there are other diseases such as tuberculosis that leads to inflammation of the lungs and is infectious; leprosy that leads to degeneration of the limbs and is very painful as well. All of these if go undetected in the early stages can be lethal.
      However in the modern day, there are diseases such as cancer, diabetes that though are not communicable or infectious, are equally harmful. These are multi-system disorder and lead to death if not detected early enough. These are also very complex and complete understanding of how to treat them is still not there. Additionally diseases such as Alzheimers is also on the rise, leads to degeneration of the brain which leads to loss of memory and progressively gets worse along with other bodily symptoms leaving the patient and his family in a state of despair.

    • Photo: Ian Stephenson

      Ian Stephenson answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      The most dangerous disease is probably flu.

      A couple of years ago we had a scare that the new version of flu might kill a lot of people, but fortunately it didn’t work out that way. At beginning of the last century a flu outbreak known as Spanish flu killed around 100Million people in a couple of years. Given that the world population was a lot less that was maybe 1 person in 30 within a two year period.

      While there are nasty disease out there, they’ve not had the scale of effect that flu has had.

    • Photo: Naomi Osborne

      Naomi Osborne answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      There are some pretty deadly diseases out there – like the Ebola virus which kills up to 90% people it infects by causing bleeding inside and out. But if we’re talking about the most dangerous disease that could wipe out millions, then I have to agree with Ian – the flu.

      Flu might not sound scary, after all, we hear about it every year. But there are some types of flu (such as bird flu that infects mainly birds) that can be lethal – but they can’t infect humans very well. Yet.

      The flu virus can infect either birds, humans or pigs. Pigs can be infected by all types of flu and this enables mixing of the viruses making new ones that we’re not immune to. This is thought to be the cause of the Spanish Flu and could happen again – but hopefully not in our lifetime!

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