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The first extreme infectious disease outbreak in the US dates back to the 1600's. Smallpox was brought over to New England from Europe and killed close to 70% of the population.
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Yellow fever is a disease that spreads through infected mosquitoes. The most famous outbreak of Yellow Fever was in Philadelphia, PA in the US, when over 4,000 people died over four months. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSr2gwInkKU
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The Spanish flu was a huge outbreak of an influenza virus that spread throughout the world and the US. Soldiers in WW1 came home and passed the disease to citizens here.
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In 1952 Polio cases were at an outstanding high with people in a panic. Thousands of people died until the now current vaccine was created in 1979.
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An outbreak of this type of influenza virus originated in China in 1956, and reached the US by 1957. Even though a vaccine was created fairly quickly, 70,000 Americans died.
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First documented in 1981, the deadly disease known as AIDS killed more than 5,500 people in the US. Still today more than 35 million people live with AIDS worldwide. More than 25 million people have died from it since it was first reported. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMnb536WuC0
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In Milwaukee two of the water treatment plants were contaminated with a parasitic disease that caused about 403,000 to become ill. It was the largest waterborne outbreak in US history.
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The H1N1 flu pandemic killed about 18,500 people in the world in 2009. It is a type of Swine flu virus that caused a panic here in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDUhd7zmg_A
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Pertussis, or Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease and is one of the most commonly occurring disease in the US. In 2010, an outbreak resulted in over 9,000 illnesses. It was the biggest outbreak since 1945.
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Throughout history, infectious diseases threaten the world. Over the past decade, The World Health Organization has reported Global Health Emergencies. Most pathogens that spark the diseases are not new, some of the viruses have evolved hundreds of years ago.
