The 1510 flu pandemic was the first to be chronicled across continents. It originated in Asia before spreading through North Africa and Europe.

In 1557 a pandemic strain of influenza emerged in Asia recorded in Goa around September of that year.  It spread west along established trade and pilgrimage routes to Africa, Europe, and eventually the Americas.

This was a major outbreak of the plague on the island of Malta.  It occurred in three waves from  June 1592 and September 1593, and it resulted in approximately 3000 deaths (around  11% of the Maltese population). The disease was imported to Malta by Tuscan galleys that had captured vessels from Alexandria.

A estimated 40,000 people died

Known as the Great Plague of London in which an estimated 100,000 people (a quarter of the population of London)  died.

The virus that caused outbreak was not known and neither was the death toll

Very little known, no estimate of death toll.

This was the last major outbreak of plague on the islands of Malta. It resulted in approximately 4500 deaths, which was about 5% of the islands’ population.

The first Cholera pandemic began in Bengal and by 1820 had spread across India killing hundreds of thousands of Indians and ten thousand British troops.  This outbreak extended as far as China, Indonesia (where more than 100,000 people succumbed on the island of Java  alone) and the Caspian Sea in Europe, before receding

Thought to have killed around 19,000 people

The North America Typhus Epidemic of 1847 was caused by the  massive Irish emigration during the Great Famine, aboard crowded and disease-ridden Coffin ships

Called the Broad Street Cholera Outbreak, it claimed the lives of 616 people.  It  occurred  during the 1846–1860 cholera pandemic happening worldwide. It is best known for the physician John Snow’s study of its causes and his hypothesis that germ-contaminated water was the source of cholera, rather than particles in the air.  This discovery came to influence public health and the construction of improved sanitation facilities beginning in the mid-19th century.

The third plague pandemic as it became known was a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in China in 1855 and spread to all inhabited continents. It  led to more than 12 million deaths in India and China, with about 10 million killed in India alone.  According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1960, when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year.   Deaths  have continued at a lower level every year since.

Called the Europe and the Americas influenza epidemic, not much is known about it not even an estimated death toll.

The Sydney measles epidemic, death toll was thought to be around 748

Claimed the lives of at least 40,000

Called the Fifth Cholera Pandemic as it was the fifth  major international outbreak of cholera in the 19th century. The death toll was estimated to be over 290,000. It spread throughout Asia and Africa, and reached parts of France, Germany, Russia, and South America.

The 1889–1890 flu pandemic, was also  known as the Asiatic and Russian flu. It  killed around a million people worldwide out of a population of about 1.5 billion and was the last great pandemic of the 19th century.

The Congo Basin African trypanosomiasis epidemic is caused by an insect-borne parasitic infection of humans and other animals. It is often called the African sleeping sickness or simply sleeping sickness. This epidemic claimed the lives of around 500,00 Africans.

Sydney bubonic plague epidemic, killed over 100 people

Papua New Guinea Kuru Epidemic.  Kuru is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder which was common among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. Kuru is a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) caused by the transmission of abnormally folded proteins (prion proteins), which leads to symptoms such as tremors and loss of coordination from neurodegeneration. It has claimed over 3000 lives.

Death toll 4.

This pandemic was also known as the Spanish Flu and conceded with the end of the First World War. This was an unusually deadly pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. It lasted from February 1918 to April 1920 and infected 500 million people (around a  third of the world’s population at the time). There were  four successive waves and the  death toll is estimated to be between  17 and  50 million, but possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

The 1929–1930 psittacosis pandemic, also known as the the great parrot fever pandemic was a series of simultaneous outbreaks of psittacosis accelerated by the breeding and transportation of birds in crowded containers for trade and was initially to have originated in  parrots from South America. It was shortly found to have spread from several species of birds from several countries worldwide to humans between mid 1929 and early 1930. Diagnosed by its clinical features and link to birds, it affected around 750- 800 people globally, with a mortality of 15% (death toll estimated at over 100) . Its mode of transmission to humans by mouth-to-beak contact or inhaling dried bird secretions and droppings was not known at the time. The cause was  Chlamydia psittaci a bacteria  which lays dormant in birds until activated by stress of capture or confinement.  Cases were reported in mid 1929, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and linked to parrots from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where an ongoing outbreak of the disease had led to the cautioning bird owners to declare their sick parrots.

The Australia polio epidemic, death toll unknown