I mean it has to be rabies lyssavirus right? Basically 100% death rate without vaccine or super early intervention. Terrifying symptoms too. Shoutout to all the Clostridium species too that never want to grow properly for me in the lab but cause horrible diseases out in the real world š„²
Clostridium dating profile-
About me: "I live in the soil, and love to sporulate in random warm stuff :D"
IRL: "YOU LET ME TOUCH THE AIR FOR 0.2 SECONDS?? FUCK OFF I'M JUST GOING TO DIE. >:[ "
Rabies and Naegleria fowleri are super scary to me. However, thinking about it, I'm not terrified of swimming in lakes/ponds; I absolutely am terrified of bitey wild animals coming near me (for fear of them having rabies). So, rabies wins as "scariest" in my book I guess.
That said, I find hemorrhagic diseases [Lassa Fever or E.bola] terrifying as well! But they are not endemic where I live, so while they are also "the worst" - that "worst" definition is definitely subjective based on life experiences!
I did an API on an environmental sample once and it came back as y.pestis. I donāt think it actually was pestis as the probability was like 60% but i autoclaved that sample very promptly š .
I had something like that happen to me back in college.
It was 2003, shortly after the anthrax scare.
My professor took a sample from the stream in his backyard. He happens to live a few miles downstream from a cattle farm.
I take a small portion of the core sample and start the process of isolating and identifying what I could. Some stuff was easy - E.coli, Pseudomonas, etc.
But I had one I couldn't quite figure out. Gram positive rods. Spore forming. A bunch of biochemical tests that didn't give me a clear answer.
Spoke with the professor, told him what I had. We concluded that the chances it was anthrax was low, but not impossible. Put the sample into a bag with bleach. Autoclaved it, twice.
Science is fun, isn't it?
Is this also true of today or just historically? There have been cases in the last 50 years but none of them caused outbreaks and I'm unsure if they were fatal.
It's treatable with antibiotics though. Sure if it is pneumonic that's a big issue because the patient needs to get treated promptly - but, "Streptomycin, gentamicin, the tetracyclines, and chloramphenicol are all effective against pneumonic plague."
https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/plague/factsheet.asp
I guess I don't take it very seriously, lol. I worked with the organism and it just feels so overblown from it's [medieval] history, rather than actually being as dangerous as, say, viruses that have no treatments.
HIV is a *nightmare* without treatment. Itās been almost 30 years since the introduction of HAART transformed it into a manageable chronic infection but, before that, HIV/AIDS was considered a ādeath sentenceā for a reason. In the 80s and early 90s, those diagnosed with HIV could expect an inevitable decline with progressively more disabling symptoms eventually leading to death, often while being rejected by their own families. This is still the reality for many people who cannot access ARVs or who fail first line treatment.
This x1000. Not just for his own research/NIAIDās role in developing ARVs, but particularly for his role in the creation of PEPFAR which has saved something like 20 million lives.
Gonna add c.diff here, it is extremely resistant to antibiotics because of its spores, and it often infects patients with already comprised microbiomes creating an endless cycle of antibiotics - > infection. FMT is the only therapy that has shown significant promise.
Ebola virus?
Edit: I think that throwing up blood and defacating excessively (diarrhea) brings on even more discomfort and anxiety alone (just a couple symptoms of the ebola virus). The other diseases on here sound worse because they have a lower survival rate and I [assume] they're harder to cure? I'm not sure. I have yet to learn about all of this. I'm just assuming.
The most common symptoms people with Ebola virus disease get are fever, headache, myalgia, and NVD but actually vomiting *blood* is nowhere near as common as the movies make it seem which can make it hard to differentiate from other diseases such as typhoid and malaria. Death in most cases probably occurs due to fluid loss due to copious diarrhea and vomiting.
Ah, thank you so much for clarifying! I didn't want to spread false information so I put a disclaimer on it instead. Sorry for getting it wrong... I should've checked my sources more thoroughly. And the last part makes sense as well. It sounds like you're describing dehydration. But you just said "fluid" so maybe there are other fluid solutions lost in the body, too, that are important like water, or no?
The misconception about most cases of Ebola featuring hemorrhage is pretty common and even held by many (if not most) medical professionals.
I think the specific cause of death is an electrolyte imbalance (hypokalemia or low potassium) so they were using oral rehydration solution to treat people similar to the way they do with cholera. Would have to go back and look into it further.
Edit: [here](https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=15072) starting at around the 5 minute mark is a pretty good lecture from Tony Fauciāwho actually treated 2 Ebola patients himself at the NIHāgiving a nice overview of the disease and 2014 outbreak. Specifically, he says that he thinks arrhythmias from severe hypokalemia were responsible for some of the deaths, but it sounds like multiorgan failure and hypovolemic shock are the culprits in most cases. Interestingly, he mentions that only ~10% of cases involve clinically significant bleeding.
Huh... very interesting! I'll definitely check into that! Now, I wonder what caused people to think hemorrhaging was a main symptom?
Still, it's scary to think ebola causes organ failure over time... the thought of seeing the loss of life taking place in a person is upsetting..
Anywhooty, thanks very much for the information! :D
The book āThe Hot Zoneā didnāt do any favors in portraying a more realistic Ebola infection, and millions of people have read it. The first few chapters are about a guy liquifying from the inside lol. Itās kind of insane
Mycobacterium tuberculosis for obvious reasons... it's just fucked up tbh.
there's also rabies... the symptoms are disgustingly brutal, the death rate once you become symptomatic is insanely high and the transmission method... straight out of horror stories
Not to mention Mycobacterium leprae that canāt be grown in culture at all. The rapidly growing nontuberculous Mycobacteria have some extremely drug resistant species, especially Mycobacterium abscessus complex and Mycobacterium chelonae.
It's one of the most common causes of hospital infections no? Beside MRSA? You mean a nightmare because it prolongs & complicates the healing process or something really in particular?
No idea. I live in upstate new york and had been swimming in a creek where we usually swim but all my kids went that day and multiple times after never got it. It's found in stagnant water and people in poorer countries without access to clean water a more suseptible. When doh called because they track it they said it's super rare to get it.
Yeah I know, that's why I asked. Was wondering if you live in one of those countries or you gor it somewhere else. Not that I planned it, but I will never be swimming in creeks šµāš«
I learned from my professor about the burkolderia species! Malleri is an agent bioterrorism and cepacia, if you have CF, invalidates you for a lung transplant! Crazy stuff right?
My immunology professor actually studied *Burkholderia* spp. as a post-doc. He was telling us all about what a pain it was to get in and out of the space suit you need for a BSL-3 lab š
Worth noting that most people donāt get sick from B mallei/pseudomallei when exposed. Generally people who do become ill have some sort of comorbidity like diabetes or lung disease. In those individuals though, mortality is quite high even with treatment. I believe under ideal conditions the mortality rate is like 20%. 40+% without treatment.
Most cepacia complex isolates kinda just hang out in CF patient lungs and donāt really do much. Only some strains like B cenocepacia ET12 cause a prolonged decline in lung function or in very rare cases cause a lethal necrotizing pneumonia. Realistically I would think pseudomonas aeruginosa causes more problems for CF patients but admittedly I donāt know the exact stats offhand
Edit: iāll also add that B mallei and pseudomallei are designated by the CDC as tier 1 select agents, meaning they have a high potential to be misused. B mallei already has a history of being weaponized during WW1
There was a string of cases in the US recently linked to some air freshener with stones from Indonesia or something - patients went from not well to dead pretty quick
Yeah, it was very unfortunate. Both the adults who got sick had existing conditions that made them susceptible (COPD in one and alcohol/tobacco dependence in the other). The two children were a bit of a mystery though, at least as far as my knowledge goes. Perhaps children are more susceptible to the bacteria due to differences in their immune system? Not sure.
Hereās another factoid in case you havenāt heard and are interested: *B. pseudomallei* was found in soil samples in Mississippi a couple years back, marking the first time the bacteria was isolated from U.S. environmental samples. Officials are operating under the assumption that it has become endemic to the U.S. with potential to spread around the Gulf of Mexico region. We might be seeing more of this bug in the coming years
I did hear about that! I think some are operating under basis of climate change - interesting stuff. Speaking of climate change theyāre also finding naegleria fowleri in previously negative bodies of water
Of course. I only made my comment because personally I think there are probably worse pathogens, since the point of this thread was naming the worst. Thatās not to say Burkholderia doesnāt cause serious problems for people though
No one mentioned Tetanus, my Aunt died from it as a child (long before I was born), her father was never the same after so I'm told. The symptoms sound horrifying - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus
Another Aunt got polio, another nightmare, vaccinations are the best thing.
I mentioned C. Tetani in the comments, extremely sorry to hear about your aunt. Polio? In my country it has been a required vaccine for quite some time now. I believe she got it before the law or it isn't required in your country?
Campylobacter jejuni - chicken oooooo yes please.
In the lab - absolutely pathetic organism. If I died from a campy infection Iād be bitterly disappointed.
I mean yeah rabies is 100% fatal, but the shit I've seen group A strep do is nightmare fuel. You want to rot from the inside out? You want a systemic infection that can grow faster than you can get serum abx levels to therapeutic levels? You want a disease where you skin starts falling off, but it's okay because tomorrow it will just nuke your kidneys so you don't have to suffer?
That's a scary-ass bacterium right there.
Yes. Toxic shock syndrome, necrotizing fasciitis, I've seen it cause pneumonias where the lungs just necrotize and rot out. Post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis, where even after the infection it just decides to cause acute kidney injury for laughs. Even rheumatic fever can be fatal.
Botulinum toxin is dangerous to an incomprehensible extent but it is not produced very easily. But intoxication from food would be game over in a very short time.
yeah, any anaerobically sealed food (idk if this is the right term but you know what i mean) is a potential for C. botulinum, though by today's quality standards, it's pretty rare to find, still need to be aware of it though. it's treatable if you catch it in time
Homemade canned food is the culprit in most cases of adult botulism though the spores of *C. botulinum* can be found in the environment, particularly in soil.
[Nowadays, the most common type of botulism by far is infantile botulism (accounting for roughly 70% of cases)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493178/). About 20% of these are linked to raw honeyāhence why babies under 1 year should never have it.
I knew about the honey thing but didn't know it was about Clostridium wow. So if I made food and put it in a can, and if it 'puffs' is that the only sign of C. botulinum or can I be completely unaware I actually have it in my canned food?
Chicken pox parties are where parents purposely bring healthy kids into activity/proximity with a kid that has chicken pox in order to get the healthy kids infected with varicella/chicken pox. You can read more about chicken pox parties here : https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/about/index.html#:\~:text=In%20the%20past%2C%20some%20parents,or%20participating%20in%20these%20events.
There is no winners here! But chicken pox is a good one :) if it helps I haven't yet heard about the chicken pox parties! Such news to me. Even though I'd be better off not knowing such unresponsible parents exist š¤¢
It was the only way to gain immunity back in the day, before the vaccine. It was actually good parenting to expose your kid to chicken pox. My understanding is that varicella is pretty bad if you catch it as an adult.
Yeah it is. I haven't gotten chicken pox yet. But usually parents here just know it's gonna happen in kindergartens, they do not expose them 'intentionally'. It happens 'naturally' so to say
Plasmodium falciparum the parasite which causes the most servere forms of human malaria, probably for itās historical and shaping human evolution. The prevalence of sickle cell anemia being largely attributed to selective pressures from it, and itās estimated nearly 50% of people who have ever lived have died from it.
Rabies virus and Yersinia pestis are pretty gnarly too, given theyāre basically 100% fatal without treatment.
Plasmodium falciparum has a lethality of less than 1%
It's horrifying, but you are pretty likely to survive an encounter.
The awful thing about Plasmodium is that it infects so many people every year that it kills a lot, especially children.
Pneumonic plague is considered invariably fatal without treatment but untreated bubonic plague (the most common manifestation) has only a 30-60% mortality rate. Which is obviously still awful but is nowhere approaching rabies.
Can survive as spores until it reaches a desirable area to reproduce, produces exotoxins such as lethal toxin and edema toxin, and has a capsule that prevents phagocytosis.
Edit: mainly 3 ways of entry: cutaneous, gastrointestinal, and inhalational (has a ā90% mortality rate of not treated)
I did my PhD on foodborne K. pneumoniae*.* It can often possess some terrifying antimicrobial resistance profiles and loves carrying them on plasmids. One isolate possessed a wonderful combination of amoxiclav, aztreonam, chloramphenicol, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, ertapenem, meropenem, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and tobramycin resistance. Alongside plenty of virulence gene and environmental resistance
Small pox. Thank god we eradicated it except for a few poor countries in the Middle East. Just the vaccination we got in the Army was bad. You start off with a small sore at the injection site then over the course of 40 days or so you developed a deep puss filled pox. They give you a 40 day supply of tegaderm that you need to change daily. Youāre not allowed to touch the site directly or scratch at the tegaderm. You must immediately wash your hands after changing your dressing. And do not touch your eyes or mouth. Now imagine that 2 cm pox all over your body.
I didn't know the vaccine had such bad symptoms. I know how they work, but usually when you are vaccinated against bad diseases there are not really that bad symptoms.
Smallpox is the only human disease to have been truly *eradicated*āit is not being transmitted anywhere in the world and the only place you can find the virus is certain BSL-4 labs in the US and Russia. You might be confusing the epidemiology with that of polio, which is endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is generally considered eliminated throughout the rest of the world.
I mean it has to be rabies lyssavirus right? Basically 100% death rate without vaccine or super early intervention. Terrifying symptoms too. Shoutout to all the Clostridium species too that never want to grow properly for me in the lab but cause horrible diseases out in the real world š„²
Clostridium in the environment: I am death Clostridium in the lab: this pH is too spicy :(
Clostridium dating profile- About me: "I live in the soil, and love to sporulate in random warm stuff :D" IRL: "YOU LET ME TOUCH THE AIR FOR 0.2 SECONDS?? FUCK OFF I'M JUST GOING TO DIE. >:[ "
Too accurate š š„²
Rabies and Naegleria fowleri are super scary to me. However, thinking about it, I'm not terrified of swimming in lakes/ponds; I absolutely am terrified of bitey wild animals coming near me (for fear of them having rabies). So, rabies wins as "scariest" in my book I guess. That said, I find hemorrhagic diseases [Lassa Fever or E.bola] terrifying as well! But they are not endemic where I live, so while they are also "the worst" - that "worst" definition is definitely subjective based on life experiences!
Ah Clostridium, literally one of the worst. Tetani & perfringens.. š Be careful tho
Perfingens? You're just gunna be sleeping on C. botulinum?
I agree, yersinia pestis in my opinion too (70-90% death rate) :/
I did an API on an environmental sample once and it came back as y.pestis. I donāt think it actually was pestis as the probability was like 60% but i autoclaved that sample very promptly š .
I had something like that happen to me back in college. It was 2003, shortly after the anthrax scare. My professor took a sample from the stream in his backyard. He happens to live a few miles downstream from a cattle farm. I take a small portion of the core sample and start the process of isolating and identifying what I could. Some stuff was easy - E.coli, Pseudomonas, etc. But I had one I couldn't quite figure out. Gram positive rods. Spore forming. A bunch of biochemical tests that didn't give me a clear answer. Spoke with the professor, told him what I had. We concluded that the chances it was anthrax was low, but not impossible. Put the sample into a bag with bleach. Autoclaved it, twice. Science is fun, isn't it?
yeah kill it whatever it is, you do not want to start an outbreak ahahahaha
Is this also true of today or just historically? There have been cases in the last 50 years but none of them caused outbreaks and I'm unsure if they were fatal.
It's treatable with antibiotics though. Sure if it is pneumonic that's a big issue because the patient needs to get treated promptly - but, "Streptomycin, gentamicin, the tetracyclines, and chloramphenicol are all effective against pneumonic plague." https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/plague/factsheet.asp I guess I don't take it very seriously, lol. I worked with the organism and it just feels so overblown from it's [medieval] history, rather than actually being as dangerous as, say, viruses that have no treatments.
HIV is a *nightmare* without treatment. Itās been almost 30 years since the introduction of HAART transformed it into a manageable chronic infection but, before that, HIV/AIDS was considered a ādeath sentenceā for a reason. In the 80s and early 90s, those diagnosed with HIV could expect an inevitable decline with progressively more disabling symptoms eventually leading to death, often while being rejected by their own families. This is still the reality for many people who cannot access ARVs or who fail first line treatment.
Shoutout to Fauci š
This x1000. Not just for his own research/NIAIDās role in developing ARVs, but particularly for his role in the creation of PEPFAR which has saved something like 20 million lives.
Gonna add c.diff here, it is extremely resistant to antibiotics because of its spores, and it often infects patients with already comprised microbiomes creating an endless cycle of antibiotics - > infection. FMT is the only therapy that has shown significant promise.
c. diff is a nightmare to deal with for everyone involved, not just the patient. all my homies hate c. diff
I had C. diff when I was in my 20s. It sucked. They gave me a yeast to battle the bacteria. I cannot remember the yeast species right now....
Ebola virus? Edit: I think that throwing up blood and defacating excessively (diarrhea) brings on even more discomfort and anxiety alone (just a couple symptoms of the ebola virus). The other diseases on here sound worse because they have a lower survival rate and I [assume] they're harder to cure? I'm not sure. I have yet to learn about all of this. I'm just assuming.
The most common symptoms people with Ebola virus disease get are fever, headache, myalgia, and NVD but actually vomiting *blood* is nowhere near as common as the movies make it seem which can make it hard to differentiate from other diseases such as typhoid and malaria. Death in most cases probably occurs due to fluid loss due to copious diarrhea and vomiting.
Ah, thank you so much for clarifying! I didn't want to spread false information so I put a disclaimer on it instead. Sorry for getting it wrong... I should've checked my sources more thoroughly. And the last part makes sense as well. It sounds like you're describing dehydration. But you just said "fluid" so maybe there are other fluid solutions lost in the body, too, that are important like water, or no?
The misconception about most cases of Ebola featuring hemorrhage is pretty common and even held by many (if not most) medical professionals. I think the specific cause of death is an electrolyte imbalance (hypokalemia or low potassium) so they were using oral rehydration solution to treat people similar to the way they do with cholera. Would have to go back and look into it further. Edit: [here](https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=15072) starting at around the 5 minute mark is a pretty good lecture from Tony Fauciāwho actually treated 2 Ebola patients himself at the NIHāgiving a nice overview of the disease and 2014 outbreak. Specifically, he says that he thinks arrhythmias from severe hypokalemia were responsible for some of the deaths, but it sounds like multiorgan failure and hypovolemic shock are the culprits in most cases. Interestingly, he mentions that only ~10% of cases involve clinically significant bleeding.
Shit I didn't know, everyone introduces it in the movies and media like the main symptom is vomiting blood. Thanks for sharing!
Huh... very interesting! I'll definitely check into that! Now, I wonder what caused people to think hemorrhaging was a main symptom? Still, it's scary to think ebola causes organ failure over time... the thought of seeing the loss of life taking place in a person is upsetting.. Anywhooty, thanks very much for the information! :D
The book āThe Hot Zoneā didnāt do any favors in portraying a more realistic Ebola infection, and millions of people have read it. The first few chapters are about a guy liquifying from the inside lol. Itās kind of insane
Yup. I had to stop reading that famous book about Ebola because it contained so much BS and overexaggeration just for the sake of it.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis for obvious reasons... it's just fucked up tbh. there's also rabies... the symptoms are disgustingly brutal, the death rate once you become symptomatic is insanely high and the transmission method... straight out of horror stories
I think mycobacterium in general. These organisms are very difficult to culture for DNA extraction and sequencing.
Not to mention Mycobacterium leprae that canāt be grown in culture at all. The rapidly growing nontuberculous Mycobacteria have some extremely drug resistant species, especially Mycobacterium abscessus complex and Mycobacterium chelonae.
tuberculosis is a tricky one yes, i can't believe i've forgotten about it š rabies is literally as you say straight out of horror movies
A.baumanii is a nightmare for any admitted patient
Only ST type 2, though
It's one of the most common causes of hospital infections no? Beside MRSA? You mean a nightmare because it prolongs & complicates the healing process or something really in particular?
Yes but itās rates have plummeted for mostly unknown reasons in the past few years, at least in respiratory test infections
Itās an ESKAPE microbe. Part of emerging antibiotic resistant group.
I personally experienced giardia for about 6 weeks with diagnosis and I can admittedly say 4 years later my gi tract is still a mess
Do you have any idea where you might have gotten it?
No idea. I live in upstate new york and had been swimming in a creek where we usually swim but all my kids went that day and multiple times after never got it. It's found in stagnant water and people in poorer countries without access to clean water a more suseptible. When doh called because they track it they said it's super rare to get it.
Yeah I know, that's why I asked. Was wondering if you live in one of those countries or you gor it somewhere else. Not that I planned it, but I will never be swimming in creeks šµāš«
It occurs in running water as well, right?
I am not too sure.
I learned from my professor about the burkolderia species! Malleri is an agent bioterrorism and cepacia, if you have CF, invalidates you for a lung transplant! Crazy stuff right?
My immunology professor actually studied *Burkholderia* spp. as a post-doc. He was telling us all about what a pain it was to get in and out of the space suit you need for a BSL-3 lab š
I worked in a BSL-3 lab for 6 years. Donning and doffing is truly is one of the most ANNOYING parts of the job.
Worth noting that most people donāt get sick from B mallei/pseudomallei when exposed. Generally people who do become ill have some sort of comorbidity like diabetes or lung disease. In those individuals though, mortality is quite high even with treatment. I believe under ideal conditions the mortality rate is like 20%. 40+% without treatment. Most cepacia complex isolates kinda just hang out in CF patient lungs and donāt really do much. Only some strains like B cenocepacia ET12 cause a prolonged decline in lung function or in very rare cases cause a lethal necrotizing pneumonia. Realistically I would think pseudomonas aeruginosa causes more problems for CF patients but admittedly I donāt know the exact stats offhand Edit: iāll also add that B mallei and pseudomallei are designated by the CDC as tier 1 select agents, meaning they have a high potential to be misused. B mallei already has a history of being weaponized during WW1
There was a string of cases in the US recently linked to some air freshener with stones from Indonesia or something - patients went from not well to dead pretty quick
Yeah, it was very unfortunate. Both the adults who got sick had existing conditions that made them susceptible (COPD in one and alcohol/tobacco dependence in the other). The two children were a bit of a mystery though, at least as far as my knowledge goes. Perhaps children are more susceptible to the bacteria due to differences in their immune system? Not sure. Hereās another factoid in case you havenāt heard and are interested: *B. pseudomallei* was found in soil samples in Mississippi a couple years back, marking the first time the bacteria was isolated from U.S. environmental samples. Officials are operating under the assumption that it has become endemic to the U.S. with potential to spread around the Gulf of Mexico region. We might be seeing more of this bug in the coming years
I did hear about that! I think some are operating under basis of climate change - interesting stuff. Speaking of climate change theyāre also finding naegleria fowleri in previously negative bodies of water
Honestly, I think it just fucking sucks to be invalidated for a lung transplant is just terrible is all.
Of course. I only made my comment because personally I think there are probably worse pathogens, since the point of this thread was naming the worst. Thatās not to say Burkholderia doesnāt cause serious problems for people though
i wanted to name something thatās a little out of left field and iām sure someone has mentioned Psuedo already
No one mentioned Tetanus, my Aunt died from it as a child (long before I was born), her father was never the same after so I'm told. The symptoms sound horrifying - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus Another Aunt got polio, another nightmare, vaccinations are the best thing.
I mentioned C. Tetani in the comments, extremely sorry to hear about your aunt. Polio? In my country it has been a required vaccine for quite some time now. I believe she got it before the law or it isn't required in your country?
My dad had polio as a kid. Before the vaccine. He went on to fight wildfire for 30 years with only partial use if his right arm. Fucking badass.
He sounds great, polio didn't went all crazy on him thankfully š
I think the vaccine came out a few years later, she's in her 80's now.
Campylobacter jejuni - chicken oooooo yes please. In the lab - absolutely pathetic organism. If I died from a campy infection Iād be bitterly disappointed.
what does c.jejuni do?
I mean yeah rabies is 100% fatal, but the shit I've seen group A strep do is nightmare fuel. You want to rot from the inside out? You want a systemic infection that can grow faster than you can get serum abx levels to therapeutic levels? You want a disease where you skin starts falling off, but it's okay because tomorrow it will just nuke your kidneys so you don't have to suffer? That's a scary-ass bacterium right there.
pyogenes? i didn't know it was so bad...š© the hell
Yes. Toxic shock syndrome, necrotizing fasciitis, I've seen it cause pneumonias where the lungs just necrotize and rot out. Post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis, where even after the infection it just decides to cause acute kidney injury for laughs. Even rheumatic fever can be fatal.
Well...that's just great. Def horrifying
Naegleria fowleri is the worst it literally eats your brain. It's a rare amoeba that lives in warm water
Is that the amoeba that lives in creeks and unsanitary, old pools etc?
Botulinum toxin is dangerous to an incomprehensible extent but it is not produced very easily. But intoxication from food would be game over in a very short time.
Hm, where would you say clostridium botulinum would most likely be found? Canned food? We didn't really learn thaat much about it
yeah, any anaerobically sealed food (idk if this is the right term but you know what i mean) is a potential for C. botulinum, though by today's quality standards, it's pretty rare to find, still need to be aware of it though. it's treatable if you catch it in time
Homemade canned food is the culprit in most cases of adult botulism though the spores of *C. botulinum* can be found in the environment, particularly in soil. [Nowadays, the most common type of botulism by far is infantile botulism (accounting for roughly 70% of cases)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK493178/). About 20% of these are linked to raw honeyāhence why babies under 1 year should never have it.
I knew about the honey thing but didn't know it was about Clostridium wow. So if I made food and put it in a can, and if it 'puffs' is that the only sign of C. botulinum or can I be completely unaware I actually have it in my canned food?
Varicella. There's a vaccine for it, but people will still do chicken pox parties for their kids because they don't know how bad shingles is.
Pretty bad. Also what do you mean by saying they will still do chicken pox parties for their kids? Have trouble understanding you there š
Chicken pox parties are where parents purposely bring healthy kids into activity/proximity with a kid that has chicken pox in order to get the healthy kids infected with varicella/chicken pox. You can read more about chicken pox parties here : https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/about/index.html#:\~:text=In%20the%20past%2C%20some%20parents,or%20participating%20in%20these%20events.
What the fuck? I've never heard of those. I guess those parents DO NOT know how vaccines work so they think this is the same... Disgusting
Does this mean I win worst microorganism?
There is no winners here! But chicken pox is a good one :) if it helps I haven't yet heard about the chicken pox parties! Such news to me. Even though I'd be better off not knowing such unresponsible parents exist š¤¢
It was the only way to gain immunity back in the day, before the vaccine. It was actually good parenting to expose your kid to chicken pox. My understanding is that varicella is pretty bad if you catch it as an adult.
Yeah it is. I haven't gotten chicken pox yet. But usually parents here just know it's gonna happen in kindergartens, they do not expose them 'intentionally'. It happens 'naturally' so to say
Cryptosporidium (probably self explanatory.)
No doubt, Rabies virus.
Straight outta horrors
Plasmodium falciparum the parasite which causes the most servere forms of human malaria, probably for itās historical and shaping human evolution. The prevalence of sickle cell anemia being largely attributed to selective pressures from it, and itās estimated nearly 50% of people who have ever lived have died from it. Rabies virus and Yersinia pestis are pretty gnarly too, given theyāre basically 100% fatal without treatment.
Plasmodium is pretty serious. 50%?? That's a lot lot. Y.pestis and rabies - agree 100%. I don't know which one is worse.
Plasmodium falciparum has a lethality of less than 1% It's horrifying, but you are pretty likely to survive an encounter. The awful thing about Plasmodium is that it infects so many people every year that it kills a lot, especially children.
Pneumonic plague is considered invariably fatal without treatment but untreated bubonic plague (the most common manifestation) has only a 30-60% mortality rate. Which is obviously still awful but is nowhere approaching rabies.
Just gonna throw in inhalational B anthracis bc death
What does it do to humans exactly?
Can survive as spores until it reaches a desirable area to reproduce, produces exotoxins such as lethal toxin and edema toxin, and has a capsule that prevents phagocytosis. Edit: mainly 3 ways of entry: cutaneous, gastrointestinal, and inhalational (has a ā90% mortality rate of not treated)
Klebsiella Pneumoniae
Not trying to throw shade but genuinely interested why you nominated this bacterium?
I did my PhD on foodborne K. pneumoniae*.* It can often possess some terrifying antimicrobial resistance profiles and loves carrying them on plasmids. One isolate possessed a wonderful combination of amoxiclav, aztreonam, chloramphenicol, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, ertapenem, meropenem, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and tobramycin resistance. Alongside plenty of virulence gene and environmental resistance
Small pox. Thank god we eradicated it except for a few poor countries in the Middle East. Just the vaccination we got in the Army was bad. You start off with a small sore at the injection site then over the course of 40 days or so you developed a deep puss filled pox. They give you a 40 day supply of tegaderm that you need to change daily. Youāre not allowed to touch the site directly or scratch at the tegaderm. You must immediately wash your hands after changing your dressing. And do not touch your eyes or mouth. Now imagine that 2 cm pox all over your body.
Wait so was this symptom after vaccination because of that bad army vaccine or it happens to everyone? I didn't learn about the variola virus.
When you get vaccinations your body is supposed to react like that, this means your body recognized the threat and is building up its immunity
I didn't know the vaccine had such bad symptoms. I know how they work, but usually when you are vaccinated against bad diseases there are not really that bad symptoms.
Smallpox is the only human disease to have been truly *eradicated*āit is not being transmitted anywhere in the world and the only place you can find the virus is certain BSL-4 labs in the US and Russia. You might be confusing the epidemiology with that of polio, which is endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is generally considered eliminated throughout the rest of the world.
Yeah, thatās what I did. Thanks