The West African outbreak of Ebola has claimed more than 4,800 lives and this number is sure to rise. There is understandably a lot of fear about Ebola, but how does it actually compare with other fast-spreading infectious diseases?
Bubonic Plague
Plagues have been reported since biblical times, but it is difficult to know how serious these early epidemics were, or even what the infectious agent was.
We now know that plague is a serious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. The Black Death is thought to have been bubonic plague, named after the presence of infected lymph nodes; it killed one-third of the population of Europe in the 14th century. Bubonic plague killed one-quarter of the population of London in 1563, and the Great Plague of London killed 100,000 a century later.
