I am wondering if anyone knows how many disesases have been identified/diagnosed throughout the world. I tried searching the NIH sites but, well, good god there is so much information I don't even know where to start or what search terms to use for this question! I would think that different medical bodies world-wide have differing opinions on the number of diseases there are, so any information about how the total number of diseases is arrived at would be very helpful. Thanks!
jaseh86
Sep1-08, 11:29 AM
Are you looking for an exact number? I have no idea but you are welcome to be the first to count it and possibly take an average across many different databases! (which as you said, will arrive at different opinions regarding categorisation of a disease).
As an educated guess from the ICD:
http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/
They've managed to group everything into the alphabet A-Z, each letter with 0-99 entries.
Thus 26 * 99 = 2178.
I know this doesn't help at all, but I found it very amusing :
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_diseases_are_in_the_world
RetardedBastard
Sep1-08, 11:58 AM
Are you looking for an exact number? I have no idea but you are welcome to be the first to count it and possibly take an average across many different databases! (which as you said, will arrive at different opinions regarding categorisation of a disease).
I think I know what I'll be doing this week!
As an educated guess from the ICD:
http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/
They've managed to group everything into the alphabet A-Z, each letter with 0-99 entries.
Thus 26 * 99 = 2178.
Geez Luiz! Life's not as diseased as I thought! 2178 sounds about an order of a magnitude less than what I would have guessed. Guess there's only one way to know for sure... I'll count starting with the A's... see you all next year! :)