What was the name of the deadliest disease ever?

wendypj

Malaria kills up to three million people each year which must put it quite high in the ranking. Mosquitos are supposed to be the most dangerous animal due to their carrying the disease. May 04 07, 12:04 AM

wendypj

Tha spanish flu pandemic killed quite a lot as well - somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide but a lot of that figure is estimated due to lack of recording procedures at the time and it still leaves malaria at a higher ranking. May 04 07, 12:06 AM

Triviaballer

The 1918 flu pandemic, also referred to as Spanish flu or Spanish influenza claimed 50-100 million lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_influenza The Black Death of the 14th century claimed about 75 mullion lives including over 1/3 of Europe's population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death Unless the death rate due to AIDS slows down, it will likely pass both of the aforementioned diseases in terms of human casualties. May 04 07, 12:06 AM

1cyprus

I think through history Malaria is going to be top, but Tuberculosis hasn't been mentioned yet either. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1447626.stm This has been asked before, see Q#65456. I was looking for the most deadly speed-wise, I found a link to here! May 04 07, 1:17 AM

zbeckabee

Ischaemic heart disease -- According to the estimates in The world health report 2004, there were 57 million deaths in the world in 2002. During that one year period, Ischaemic heart disease resulted in 12.6 percent of the deaths -- 7.2 million deaths. http://www.who.int/features/qa/18/en/index.html May 04 07, 5:17 AM

BG07	Well percentage-wise I would say ebola, due to its 50-90% mortality rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola May 04 07, 5:59 AM

Baloo55th

There are various possibilities here. Deadliest could mean the quickest to kill, the most incurable, the one that's killed the most people, or even the lilling disease that's hardest to detect. May 04 07, 9:52 AM