An epidemic is an infectious disease that     1    (rapid) spreads to a large number of people within a short period of time. Epidemics can be caused by several different     2    (factor), such as a virus or bacteria.

One of the earliest     3    (record) epidemics happened between about 500 and 550 CE. It killed up to 50% of the area’s population,     4    (make) it one of the main reasons of the fall of the Roman Empire. In     5    1330s, the epidemic known as “The Black Death” returned in Asia and spread to Europe. Centuries later in 1918, the Spanish Flu     6    (strike). In 2002, SARS began     7    a case of lung disease in China. It spread to Canada, Vietnam and Singapore and lasted until 2003. Then in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, there was the most widespread outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD),     8    killed over 11,000 people.

Governments worldwide have underlined the fact that they need     9    (far) medical research on epidemics     10    (get) at the causes and come up with cures as soon as possible.