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Asked by chantelle to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 13 Nov 2014.
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Robert Hampson answered on 13 Nov 2014:
I don’t know.
Tuberculosis infects roughly a third of the world population so is pretty widespread and cause a lot of deaths.
However, there are bacteria that are not as widespread which cause much worse symptoms. Clostridium perfringens can cause gangrene which basically kills and melts body tissue. Clostridium difficile is very hard to kill with antibiotics and produces terrible diarrhoea (sometimes with blood) and abdominal pain. Clostridium botulinum releases the botulinum toxin which is one of the most toxic substances known to man kind. Just a gram of the stuff could kill the entire population of earth! Plus, all of that is only from one genus of the entire bacterial world!
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Marikka Beecroft answered on 13 Nov 2014:
I would say Tuberculosis, it’s been a big killer in the past and it’s a big killer now! Last year 9 million people were infected by TB and 1.5 million died from TB. To put that into perspective only 5000 people world wide have died of Ebola! Also TB can be dormant in your body (also called latent stage) were someone is infected by TB but TB isn’t active it isn’t doing anything to you. It’s only when you immune system is down or if you get sick already it makes it’s move.
This makes it difficult to treat, especially in poorer countries that don’t really have the resources to preform the testing required to find out who’s infected. Not only this They can’t really afford the drugs to treat TB. The disease to me is the most dangerous as it kind of sneaks up on you when you are at a weak point.
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Sally Cutler answered on 13 Nov 2014:
This is tough to answer – do you mean liklihood to kill you or something that would ruin your life for your remaining days? You need to be clear of the measure before ranking microbes. What happens to one infected individual may also be different to another in that host factors will influence the disease presentation. Leprosy is rather a nasty bacteria, but then syphilis or brucellosis can take over your mind. Mycobacterium ulcerans will also give huge disfiguring lesions. Cannot select just one.
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Ceri Dare answered on 13 Nov 2014:
It isn’t just the bacteria which are dangerous, it’s also where they are in your body and how your body reacts – for example the bacteria in your gut are very useful for helping you digest food, but if they got out of your gut and into your blood, you might get septic shock and die.
But I agree that tuberculosis is very worrying, especially drug-resistant tuberculosis – this is very difficult and in some cases impossible to treat.
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