Infectious diseases are no longer the major killers in the U.S. that they once were, but they still surprise us.
That’s what the report published in the journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), tells.
Go back to the 1900s and we see the predominance of infectious diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis and diarrhea. In fact, these diseases accounted for almost half of all deaths. The historical decline from then to now, represents a remarkable progress in sanitation, antibiotic discovery and vaccination programs.
The death rate declined almost continuously from 1900 to 1950 (except for a spike in 1918 due to outbreak of Spanish flu pandemic). Since 1950, the death rate has been mostly levelled, except for some ups and downs.
However, the picture isn’t all rosy.
- Some deadly new diseases like HIV/AIDS made appearance between 1980 and 1995. The number of deaths per 100,000 people from HIV/AIDS increased by an average of more than 85% per year (from zero deaths in 1980 to more than 15 deaths per 100,000 people in 1995), contributing to the increase in overall number of deaths from infectious diseases from 42 to 63 deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers found. It was only after new antiretroviral drugs became available, that rate fell by an average of more than 10% annually (5 deaths per 100,000 people per year) from 1995 to 2014.
- Infections transmitted by insects or vector-borne diseases, also increased the death rate slightly from 2 deaths per 10 million people in 1980 to 5 deaths per 10 million people in 2014. This increase was mostly due a rise in deaths from West Nile virus, which first emerged in North America in 1999, according to the study. In 2014 it killed about 3 people for every 10 million in the population.
- Diarrheal illness caused from Clostridium difficile are difficult to treat and have also contributed in increasing the death rate from zero deaths in 1980 to more than 2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014.
- Deaths from diseases that can be prevented with vaccines decreased from about 2 deaths per 100,000 people in 1980 to less than 1 death per 100,000 people in 2014, according to the study.
But to say that Infectious diseases have been conquered, would be wrong.
Despite the reassuring statistics, the emergence of new public health threats shows that we are still vulnerable to infections and there is a need for vigilance.
Presently, the biggest infectious disease killers in the United States are pneumonia and flu, accounting for nearly 40% of all deaths from infectious diseases. In the span of 1980 to 2014, pneumonia and flu caused 17 deaths per 100,000 people, the study found.
Here’s the study report: Infectious Disease Mortality Trends in the United States, 1980-2014
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