User:Littlemountain14/sandbox

At the very beginning of the 1980's, many countries around the world were progressing towards the complete elimination of diphtheria. At this time, Diphtheria incidence rates reached it's lowest levels, which gave optimism that the complete elimination of respiratory diphtheria could be achieved. Diphtheria is fatal in between 5% and 10% of cases. In children under five years and adults over 40 years, the fatality rate may be as much as 20%. In 2013, it resulted in 3,300 deaths, down from 8,000 deaths in 1990.

The current epidemiological pattern of diphtheria throughout the world has drastically changed over the course of the last 2 decades, specifically throughout developing countries. Better standard of living, mass immunization, improved diagnosis, prompt treatment, and more effective health care have lead to the decrease in cases worldwide. However, although outbreaks are rare, they still occur worldwide, especially in developed nations such as Germany among unvaccinated children, and Canadaneeds citation. After the breakup of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, vaccination rates in its constituent countries fell so low that an explosion of diphtheria cases occurred. In 1991, 2,000 cases of diphtheria occurred in the USSR. Because of this outburst, since 1992, many of the cases reported throughout other parts of Europe have been linked to the NIS epidemic. Belgium (3/3) and Finland (10/10) come in first, stating that 100% of cases are connected to this epidemic. However, locations such as Poland and Germany have had a larger amount of people diagnoses with Diphtheria overall, but claim that a smaller percentage have been linked directly to the NIS. By 1998, according to Red Cross estimates, as many as 200,000 cases in the Commonwealth of Independent States were reported, with 5,000 deaths.

copied from Diphtheria

Really good information. I enjoyed how you all expanded past your main points to provide explanation and reasoning. Your information does require citation. ~dgill952