Diphtheria epidemiology and demographics

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Epidemiology

Diphtheria cases reported to the World Health Organization between 1997 and 2006 (see description for legend).

• Diphtheria is a serious disease, with fatality rates between 5% and 10%.
• In children under 5 years and adults over 40 years, the fatality rate may be as much as 20%. Outbreaks, though very rare, still occur worldwide, even in developed nations.
• After the breakup of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, vaccination rates in its constituent countries fell so low that there was an explosion of diphtheria cases. In 1991 there were 2,000 cases of diphtheria in the USSR.
• By 1998, according to Red Cross estimates, there were as many as 200,000 cases in the Commonwealth of Independent States, with 5,000 deaths.
• This was so great an increase that diphtheria was cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as "most resurgent disease".