Marburg virus disease (MVD), formerly known as Marburg haemorrhagic fever, is a severe disease in humans caused by Marburg marburgvirus (MARV). Although MVD is uncommon, MARV has the potential to cause epidemics with significant case fatality rates.
Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and sometimes the lungs. It can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death. The best way to prevent flu is by getting a flu vaccine each year.
Fleas are ectoparasitic blood-sucking insects with the ability to jump, which commonly infest wild and domestic animals (mainly dogs and cats) but also humans.
A pandemic is the rapid spread of a new human influenza around the world. Influenza pandemics happen when a new strain of a flu virus appears which can infect humans, to which most people have no immunity and which can transmit efficiently from human to human.
Plague is caused by the bacillus Yersinia (Y.) pestis, belonging to the family of the Enterobacteriaceae. It evolved several thousand years ago from Y. pseudotuberculosis.
Plague is caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria. Blood sucking fleas transmit the bacteria among animals, and various species of rodents can become infected.