The 10 Deadliest Bacteria in History (Ranked by an Infectious Disease Doctor

Описание: A billion deaths in two centuries, from a single bacterium. In 2019, one in every eight deaths worldwide was linked to a bacterial infection. These are the ten deadliest bacterial infections in history: from diphtheria and the sled dogs of Nome, to tuberculosis, and a number zero that is still being written, the antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

▶ WATCH NEXT
• The 10 deadliest viruses in history, ranked:    • The 10 Deadliest Viruses in History  
• Tuberculosis, No. 1 on this list, the full 67-minute documentary:    • Why Tuberculosis Is Still the World’s Dead...  
• Part 2: the 10 bacteria that almost made this list:    • 950,000 Deaths A Year: The World's Deadlie...  
• Plague, number 2 on this list, told in full (Panic in Siberia):    • Panic in Siberia: The Truth About the Late...  
• More rankings: Strangest Human Infections:    • Strangest Human Infections  
▶ All the rankings, in order:    • Rankings by an Infectious Disease Doctor  
▶ Subscribe, a new story every week:    / @historyofinfections  

CHAPTERS
0:00 Hook
0:46 No. 10 Diphtheria
1:51 No. 9 Typhoid fever
2:54 No. 8 Syphilis
4:13 No. 7 Rickettsial diseases
5:32 No. 6 Group A strep
6:52 No. 5 Golden staph (Staphylococcus aureus)
8:17 No. 4 Pneumococcus
9:22 No. 3 Cholera
10:28 No. 2 Plague
11:38 No. 1 Tuberculosis
12:25 Number zero: antibiotic resistance


NOTE
Educational video. It does not replace a medical consultation. The ranking combines historical and current burden: reliable cumulative death counts do not exist for every bacterium, and the video says so. Script reviewed by the channel author, an infectious disease physician.

MAIN SOURCES
• GBD 2019 AMR Collaborators / Ikuta et al., The Lancet, 2022 (7.7 million deaths associated with 33 bacteria in 2019)
• Murray et al., The Lancet, 2022 (antimicrobial resistance, 2019). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35065702
• GRAM / Naghavi et al., The Lancet, 2024 (resistance in 2021 and projections 2025–2050)
• WHO, Global Tuberculosis Report and tuberculosis data, 2024–2025
• Paulson, Nature, 2013 (more than a billion deaths from tuberculosis in two centuries)
• Benedictow, History Today (Black Death); Faccini-Martínez, Biomédica, 2013 (third plague pandemic)
• WHO, Weekly Epidemiological Record (cholera 2025)
• Carapetis et al., Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2005 (group A streptococcus)
• Semmelweis, 1861 (James Lind Library); Britannica
• Emerging Infectious Diseases (CDC), 2023 (typhus in Russia); Bonell et al., PLoS NTD, 2017
• Chen et al., Infectious Diseases of Poverty, 2024 (typhoid fever)
• WHO, sexually transmitted infections programme (syphilis 2022)
• Hektoen International (Albert Alexander; history of typhus); History of Vaccines; CDC; NPS (Nome serum run, 1925)

TRANSPARENCY
The narration is the voice of the channel author, digitally cloned with ElevenLabs from his own voice. Historical scenes and microscopic organisms are AI-generated illustrations, labeled on screen; they are not photographs or paintings from the period. Maps and graphics are original, made for this video. The music was not AI-generated.

IMAGE CREDITS
Public domain or Creative Commons archive images, credited on screen; cropped and animated.
• The head louse (Pediculus humanus capitis) 05 — Korinna — CC BY 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
• Portrait of Howard Taylor Ricketts, Wellcome M0014437 — Unknown author — CC BY 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
• Howard Florey — Brigadier Sidney Smith — CC BY 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
• Map showing deaths from Cholera in Broad Street... Wellcome L0063431 — Unknown author — CC BY 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
All other archive images: public domain or no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons (Library of Congress, CDC, NIH and others).

MUSIC
Licensed from Epidemic Sound.

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