Pandemics
Disease outbreaks may be inevitable, but large-scale pandemics are not. The world can respond swiftly and effectively to pandemic risks in the future with better understanding, resources, and effort.
To avoid suffering through another large pandemic, we have to take the risk of pandemics seriously. Despite warnings that another one was likely, the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than 27 million people.1
We must build the capacity to test for pathogens and understand them: which pathogens put us at the greatest risk, how they spread, and how to tackle them.
We know it is possible to greatly reduce the risk of infectious disease. We’ve learned over history how to reduce their impact with vaccines, public health efforts, and medicine.
In addition to the old risks, we face new threats from factory farming, genetic modification, climate change, and antimicrobial resistance. With more attention and effort, we can reduce their risks too.
On this page, we show data and research on pandemics in history and how we can reduce their risk in the future.
Research & Writing
Articles on pandemics in history
The Spanish flu: The global impact of the largest influenza pandemic in history
Smallpox is the only human disease to be eradicated – here's how the world achieved it
Breaking out of the Malthusian trap: How pandemics allow us to understand why our ancestors were stuck in poverty
Antiretroviral therapy has saved millions of lives from AIDS and could save more
Articles on pandemic risks
Articles on COVID-19
Data explorers on pandemics
Interactive Charts on Pandemics
Historical trends across infectious diseases
Number of one-year-olds who have received different vaccinations
Respiratory death rate from seasonal influenza, age 65+
Estimated cumulative excess deaths during COVID-19Non-Explorer, single-entity version
Cholera reported deaths
Incidence and prevalence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis
Antibiotic usage in livestock
COVID-19 vaccination coverage worldwideMarimekko
Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases by world regionStacked area chart – by world region
H5N1 influenza: monthly reported cases
HIV funding and estimated future requirements
HIV funding in low- and middle-income countries, by region
HIV prevalenceUNAIDS
HIV/AIDS deaths averted by antiretroviral therapy
Imports of personal protective equipment (PPE)
Imports of personal protective equipment per capita
Malaria deaths by world regionWHO
Paralytic polio: estimated cases by world region
Smallpox cases reported worldwide
Smallpox deaths as a share of all deaths in London1629 to 1902
Smallpox: when was it eliminated in each country?
Endnotes
This comes from the central estimate of excess mortality published by The Economist by the time of publication, December 2023.
Solstad S. The pandemic’s true death toll. Economist 2021;20. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker (10 October 2022, date last accessed). See also: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/05/13/how-we-estimated-the-true-death-toll-of-the-pandemic
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Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as:
Saloni Dattani, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Edouard Mathieu, Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2023) - “Pandemics” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/pandemics' [Online Resource]BibTeX citation
@article{owid-pandemics,
author = {Saloni Dattani and Lucas Rodés-Guirao and Edouard Mathieu and Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser},
title = {Pandemics},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2023},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/pandemics}
}
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