8. Hong Kong flu
Death toll: 2.5 million
Year: 1968 -1970
We are continuing our list of biggest epidemics in human history with the third influenza epidemics to strike the world in the 20th century again that originated in China. Soon, it spread to Hong Kong and from there all over the world. This time, it was influenza A subtype H3N2. It is believed that it was the strain that was created by a mutation of the H2N2 virus, the one that was responsible for the Asian Flu epidemics just 11 years earlier. Its severity varied from region to region. In Japan, it was rather mild compared to the United States where it caused 33,800 deaths.
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