You called in sick yesterday
because you thought you had the flu,
but today you feel even worse.
You have heavy bleeding and delirium
because you’ve got one of the world's
most deadly viruses.
What are your chances of living through it?
A virus is a sneaky threat.
You can’t see or hear it,
but it can enter your body and cause
irreversible damage or even kill you.
Once you develop symptoms,
it could be too late.
Today we put together a list of
the most lethal viruses.
Keep watching,
and you just might survive them.
Its origins have been traced back
to the 1800s.
The human immunodeficiency virus
likely passed to humans when they hunted
chimpanzees in Central Africa
and came in contact with an infected
ape's blood.
HIV spreads through sex,
drug injection equipment
and other ways.
Once you get infected with HIV,
it will attack your immune system.
But if you don't treat the virus,
it’ll lead to AIDS.
This is the most severe phase
of the infection.
The virus damages the patient’s
immune system so badly that
they’re deeply vulnerable
to severe illnesses.
When the disease reaches this stage,
your chances of surviving
are extremely low.
The WHO states that at the end of 2020,
37.7 million people were living with HIV.
Although there’s no cure for the virus,
antiretroviral therapy
can help control the infection.
The variola virus causes smallpox.
It is an old disease that existed for
at least 3,000 years,
and since 1900
it has been responsible
for more than 300 million deaths.
This contagious disease spreads
from person-to-person
through direct contact with the skin.
Nose and mouth droplets from coughs
and sneezes spread it too.
First, you'd likely feel a high fever,
fatigue and intense back pain.
Next would be a rash on your face
and hands.
Inside the bumps would be a clear liquid
that changes to pus then forms scabs.
Those scabs leave nasty scars.
But that’d be the least of your problems,
as this virus made people go blind.
But luckily for you,
vaccination efforts around the globe
eradicated smallpox in 1977.
Marburg virus disease
is a severe hemorrhagic fever
caused by an animal-borne virus.
It's in the same family as the Ebola virus.
The African fruit bat
hosts the Marburg virus.
Infected bats don’t show
any obvious sign of illness
and can transmit the infection
to primates, including humans,
through direct contact with
infected bat feces.
A person with the Marburg virus
can spread it to others through their blood
or body fluids.
The incubation period
can last up to 21 days.
Around the fifth day,
you could get a rash on your chest
or back.
As the disease progresses,
it will cause inflammation in the pancreas,
massive bleeding
and dysfunction in your organs.
The worst part is realizing
there’s no specific treatment
for Marburg disease,
although doctors can try to maintain
your oxygen and blood pressure levels
to keep you alive.
The best thing you can do is avoid contact
with fruit bats,
their feces and infected animals.
Researchers have identified six strains
of the Ebola virus.
The most deadly strain
drove the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak
in West Africa
and killed 90% of the infected people.
The disease can cause
unexplained heavy bleeding
and organ dysfunction,
which can kill you.
The first Ebola virus disease outbreaks
happened in 1976 in South Sudan
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Even though scientists still don’t know
where the virus originated,
they speculate that certain animals carry it.
People who came in contact
with the tissue, blood or body fluids
of infected animals
got the virus and then spread it
to other people
through direct contact with a sick person’s
body fluids.
Thanks to scientists,
there are now a few vaccines that can
protect you against this lethal virus.
The Ervebo vaccine has been used in
Ghana and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo
to help control Ebola outbreaks.
You can get this disease from your pet.
In most cases,
domestic dogs spread the virus
through bites and scratches.
In humans,
the symptoms start with
difficulty swallowing, drooling
and strange behavior.
But once symptoms appear,
the disease is almost 100% fatal.
In the last stage of the disease,
rabies causes seizures,
coma
and death.
Wild animals like raccoons and foxes
can get rabies too.
A rabid animal often has
foaming at its mouth
and extremely aggressive behavior.
The good news is that
rabies is a preventable disease.
If you own a pet,
keep its rabies vaccinations up-to-date.
And don't try coming too close to
or touching wild animals.
Phew.
That was a close call,
but you managed to survive
the top five most deadly viruses.
But viruses aren’t the only
microscopic threat that can kill you.
Do you know how to survive a bacteria
responsible for killing more than
50 million people?
Stay tuned to find out, right here.