Top 10 Freaky Diseases You Really Don't Want to Get
Every time there’s a new disease out there making headlines, news outlets jump all over them, explaining how this is the one that is going to kill us all. It’s not the media’s fault though, we all live in constant fear of the next plague that we’re not going to be immune to and will vomit to our inevitable deaths. If you think about it, all it takes is the right circumstances for any disease to kill us all. Which is what brings us to today's topic - the Top 10 Freaky Diseases You Really Don’t Want To Get!
10. Chikungunya
This disease, spread by mosquitos, first spread in southern Tanzania in 1952. The virus belongs to the alphavirus genus of the Togavridiae family. Which, to everyone besides scientists, are just words that mean nothing at all. The name comes from a word in Kimakonde which means “to become contorted”, which says a lot about what the disease actually does. It’s transmitted by female mosquitos of the Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albopictus variety, which transmits other diseases as well. They bite during the day, with peaks in the early morning and afternoon. People who suffer the disease show signs after about a week of being bitten. They’ll start with a headache, muscle pain, joint swelling, and rash, before severely disabling the sufferers. Sure, the risk of death is small, but if these mosquitos spread and start coming at all of us, it really could be over!
9. Cholera
Cholera was basically the plague of the modern era. It’s caused by the ingestion of food or water that’s been contaminated with Vibrio Cholerae, a bacteria. To this day, it’s still a threat and shows up in areas that lack social development, which means it strikes the poorest areas of the world the hardest. It causes watery diarrhea, and severe dehydration that lasts between 12 hours and 5 days after you ingested the contaminated food or water. Within hours, it can kill people, both children, and adults. Luckily, in the United States, about 10 cases are reported each year - but worldwide, sadly, over 100,000 cases are reported.
8. Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever
This fever is transmitted by ticks. While humans get really sick from a tick bite, the ticks themselves don’t suffer the disease they’re carrying at all. It was first described in 1944, in Crimea, which is where it got its first name, Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever. Then it was discovered that the pathogen was also identified in the Congo, so, alas, we have our name. In 3 to 9 days after the tick bite, sufferers start showing symptoms. Then, all of a sudden, fevers, muscle pains, neck pain and stiffness, backache, headache, sore eyes, sensitivity to light, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, sore throat, mood swings, and confusion will set in. Are there any symptoms you DON'T get!? Talk about a rough week! Later, it turns into fatigue, depression, and the abdominal pain gets more focused on the upper right quadrant. The mortality rate is about 30% and death usually comes in the second week.
7. Ebola
The Ebola Virus or Ebola hemorrhagic fever is fatal and affects both humans and animals. It’s transmitted from animals to people. Animals who carry it include fruit bats, porcupines and primates. The disease can spread from person to person via contact with blood, secretions, organs, and other bodily fluids, or from infected materials and surfaces. The fatality rate is about 50%, but certain outbreaks have had rates that go up to 90%! The first cases were in central Africa, then again in 2014 for two years in West Africa, the largest outbreak since 1976.
This is when we all freaked out all the way in America. It was crossing borders from Guinea to Sierra Leone and Liberia. From infection to symptoms we have an incubation period that’s anywhere between 2 and 21 days! This is why quarantine is so important! Symptoms, again include fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat. Then comes diarrhea, rash, kidney and liver failure, and even internal and external bleeding, which is mainly the horror poster we saw all over the news. Treatment is limited, but hydrating and treating the symptoms goes a long way.
6. Lassa Fever
Another hemorrhagic illness, how fun! This one is easy to contract, normally through food or household items that have come in contact with infected rat’s bodily fluids. Do you know where your food sat for hours or days before it reached you? Yeah, wash that kale, Karen. Well, maybe just anything that possibly came from West Africa, where the rodent disease is endemic. After you’ve contracted the disease, you can infect others around you, especially in close-quarter places like health care facilities! Fatality rate is low, overall at about 1%, 15% in severe untreated cases, so early care is vital.
After being contaminated, you won't actually be symptomatic for almost a month. And that’s where it gets tricky, because about 80% of people who have it, don’t show symptoms at all, even though it’s probably going after your kidneys, liver, and spleen. When you do show symptoms, you'll be treated with fever, general weakness, sore throat, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cough and abdominal pain, seizures, disorientation, and tremors! 25% of patients who recover, lose their hearing, half of those regaining it after a few months. In fatal cases, it’ll take just 14 days to die. For a disease this frightening, it’s shocking that most of us haven’t heard of it before.
5. Monkeypox
If the name of this disease doesn’t immediately freak you out or take you to some Indiana Jones movie, then I don’t know what to tell you. You’re officially not capable of being freaked out by disease names. This orthopoxvirus is similar to smallpox, which has been eradicated since 1980. However, Monkeypox is still endemic in Central and West Africa. You’ll often find it lingering near tropical rainforests where infected animals live. It’s mainly transferable going from animal to human, as it’s believed human-to-human infection is possible, but not sustainable for the disease. Of course, it’s not pretty at all. Symptoms include skin rashes - starting mostly on the face - that change texture and color in disgusting ways, headache, fatigue, swelling of the lymph nodes, back pain, and muscle pain. It can only be diagnosed in specialized laboratories with several tests. Treatment is scarce but it’s possible to control. Vaccination is extremely effective at about 85%, but isn’t available anymore after it was discontinued after the eradication of smallpox.
4. Nipa Virus Infection
This Zoonotic Virus, known simply as the Nipa Virus, infects from animals to humans, and also goes from infected food to people, and people to people! And the symptoms are rather shocking. From asymptomatic infection to respiratory illnesses and fatal encephalitis. It can also infect pigs and other animals, resulting in severe distress in agricultural economies. So far, it’s only had outbreaks in Asia, but the World Health Organization keeps a close eye on it as it could affect the public in a big way, possibly killing many. The initial signs are nonspecific and the diagnosis is difficult. To add, there are no drugs or vaccines, so for now, only intensive care is recommended for complications, including respiratory and neurologic problems.
3. Tularaemia
This disease is as freaky as it is hard to pronounce. Also known as “rabbit fever”, humans become infected with this disease through the bite of ticks and mosquitoes through the skin, but it’s usually seen in wild mammals and birds. So far, it looks like it’s not contagious from person-to-person. This is one of those diseases that hits a little closer to home, literally. About 200 cases are reported in the United States every year. Men seem to be the target more often, hitting harder during the summer. This could be due to hunting and hiking practices. The disease was actually discovered in California, in Tulare county, hence the name. Once you get it, you’ll start to see fever, skin ulcers, enlarged lymph nodes, and sometimes even pneumonia or throat infection. It's preventable by using repellent, protective clothing, or removing ticks quickly. If you become an unlucky one, it's treatable with antibiotics. Thank goodness for antibiotics!
2. MERS-CoV
MERS Stands for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or “Camel Flu”, for short. This disease is a respiratory infection that manifests as fever, cough, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. It hits people with other health problems a lot harder and about 30% of people who are diagnosed will die from it. It comes from bats, and camels have shown antibodies to it, though scientists aren’t sure how they’re being infected. Of course, humans have also been infected and researchers suspect camels are the culprits, but we’re still not sure. Between humans, it’s pretty hard to spread, requiring close contact, and it’s highly uncommon outside of hospitals. The risk this has to wipe us all out is pretty low, but you can never be too sure, especially considering there’s no vaccination for it. It’s not spreading quickly or anything, just 200 cases have been diagnosed as of 2017, and the first case was just in 2012, so we’ll just let the World Health Organization keep an eye on it. Just, don’t touch camels, okay?
1. Rift Valley Fever
As usual, mosquitoes are the culprits here. Usually, only animals are the ones affected, but sometimes humans are, too. Rift Valley Fever, or RVF, can cause flu-like symptoms or hemorrhagic fever that can kill you. Not the type of odds you want to roll the dice on. It first came up in 1931 when an epidemic hit a farm in Rift Valley Kenya. Sheep were dying left and right, and ever since, outbreaks have been spotted in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which means it’s officially outside of the African continent. In humans, it’ll take about a week to show symptoms, which can be pretty mild in some, and really scary in others. Some feel neck stiffness, sensitivity to light, loss of appetite, and vomiting for up to a week. That’s the mild side. Scared yet? Severe symptoms include eye disease, meningoencephalitis, and hemorrhagic fever. Vaccines haven’t really been developed, though they’re being researched, and for now all you can do if you contract it is treat the symptoms and hope you don’t lose an eye! Just kidding, not really.
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