Not medical advice. This site is general information only. In an emergency call your local emergency number. For advice about your own health, speak to a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified health professional.
1950-2000
27 entries
HIV AIDS Pandemic
HIV AIDS was first recognized in 1981 when the CDC reported unusual pneumocystis pneumonia clusters in young gay men in ...
Asian Flu 1957
The Asian Flu pandemic of 1957 to 1958 was caused by the H2N2 influenza A virus. The first cases were reported in Guizho...
Hong Kong Flu 1968
The Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968 to 1970 was caused by the H3N2 influenza A virus. The virus was first recorded in Hon...
Ebola Reston
Ebola Reston was discovered in 1989 when monkeys at a quarantine facility in Reston, Virginia, began dying from a filovi...
Legionnaires Disease
Legionnaires disease was first identified in July 1976 when 182 people fell ill and 29 died after attending an American ...
Toxic Shock Syndrome
Toxic Shock Syndrome TSS became widely known in 1980 when an outbreak of Staphylococcus aureus TSS affected young women ...
Nipah Malaysia
Nipah virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak in Malaysia that killed 105 of 265 infected people, a case f...
Lassa Fever
Lassa fever is a viral hemorrhagic fever caused by the Lassa arenavirus, first identified in 1969 in Lassa, Nigeria. The...
Hantavirus Four Corners
In May 1993, a cluster of unexplained deaths occurred in the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States where...
Marburg Virus 1967
Marburg virus disease was first recognized in 1967 when laboratory workers in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, and Belgra...
Cutter Incident
The Cutter Incident of 1955 was one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in US history. After the Salk polio vaccine wa...
Swine Flu Ford
The 1976 swine flu scare began when a soldier at Fort Dix, New Jersey, died of an H1N1 swine influenza virus similar to ...
Tylenol Murders
The Tylenol murders of 1982 were a series of poisoning deaths in the Chicago area. Seven people died after taking Extra ...
Thalidomide
Thalidomide was marketed from 1957 as a sedative and was widely used by pregnant women for morning sickness. It was sold...
Minamata Disease
Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning, first identified in 1956 in Minamata, Ja...
Bhopal Disaster
The Bhopal disaster of December 3, 1984, was the worst industrial chemical accident in history. Approximately 40 tonnes ...
Chernobyl
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, when Reactor Number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant ne...
Love Canal
Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, built on top of a toxic waste dump containing 21,000 tons of t...
HIV Patient Zero
The concept of Patient Zero in the HIV epidemic originated from a misunderstanding. The CDC identified a French Canadian...
Seven Coronaviruses
Seven coronaviruses are known to infect humans. Four cause common colds: HCoV 229E identified in 1965, HCoV OC43 in 1967...
Biosafety Levels
Biosafety levels BSL are a set of containment precautions designed to protect laboratory workers and the environment fro...
Biological Weapons Convention
The Biological Weapons Convention BWC, formally the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Sto...
H5N1 Bird Flu
H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza HPAI was first identified in a goose in Guangdong province, China, in 1996. The v...
Lyme Disease
Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, transmitted through the bite of infected Ixodes ticks. The...
E coli O157
E coli O157 H7 was first identified as a pathogen in 1982 during outbreaks linked to McDonalds hamburgers in Oregon and ...
1976 Ebola Zaire
The first recorded Ebola outbreak occurred in Yambuku, Zaire now DR Congo, in 1976. The first recognised case was Mabalo...
West Nile USA
West Nile Virus was first detected in the Western Hemisphere in August 1999 when an unusual cluster of encephalitis case...