Health & Medicine in the 21st century

155 sourced entries, 2000 CE to 2025 CE, oldest first. Also see Health & Medicine across every century or everything else in the 21st century.

• 2000May 5 – After originating in the Philippines, the ILOVEYOU computer virus spreads quickly throughout the world.source
• 2000May 11 – India's population reaches 1 billion.source
• 2001January 16 – The final documented case of the 2000–2001 Uganda ebola outbreak is diagnosed.source
• 2001February 19 – The 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak begins.source
• 2001May 31 – Research into Crohn's disease confirms that it is identified with mutation of the NOD2 gene.source
• 2001July 2 – The world's first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in Robert Tools in the United States.source
• 2001July – The largest ever recorded outbreak of Legionnaires' disease occurs in Murcia, Spain. 449 cases are confirmed, with more than 800 suspected ones.source
• 2001September 18 – The 2001 anthrax attacks begin in the United States, which cause five fatalities and 17 other infections.source
• 2001September 24 – A tornado outbreak tears through the eastern United States, causing two deaths and 57 injuries, and causing damages of $105 million.source
• 2001November 15 – Microsoft enters the gaming console market with the release of the Xbox, a sixth-generation gaming console, in the United States.source
• 2001December 8 – An ebola outbreak is confirmed in Gabon.source
• 2002July 11 – The first synthetic virus is announced after being successfully created and tested at Stony Brook University.source
• 2002October 4 – The genome sequences for malaria carriers anopheles gambiae and plasmodium falciparum are published.source
• 2002October 31 – Belarus restricts religious activity outside of the Belarusian Orthodox Church with a new law.source
• 2002November 16 – 2002–2004 SARS outbreak: The first case of the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, a zoonosis caused by a coronavirus, is recorded in Guangdong province of south China.source
• 2003March 12 – The World Health Organization issues a global alert on SARS when it spreads to Hong Kong and Vietnam after originating in Mainland China.source
• 2003May 15 – Contact with infected prairie dogs causes the first outbreak of human mpox in the Western Hemisphere. Cases continue until June 11.source
• 2003July 5 – SARS is declared to be contained by the World Health Organization.source
• 2003September 11 – The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety comes into effect.source
• 2004April 14 – Poland bans the use of chlorofluorocarbons.source
• 2004September 30 – Painkiller Vioxx is pulled from the market due to a potential doubling of heart attack risk.source
• 2004November 21 – Nintendo releases the Nintendo DS handheld game console in North America.source
• 2005January 1 – Jeanna Giese from Wisconsin, United States, comes home from the hospital and officially becomes the first person to ever survive rabies without a vaccination.source
• 2005November 13 – Andrew Stimpson, a 25-year-old Scottish man, is reported as the first person proven to have been 'cured' of HIV.source
• 2005November 30 – Surgeons in France carry out the first human face transplant with Isabelle Dinoire becoming the first person to undergo it.source
• 2005December 16 – Find-a-drug medical distributed computing project is concluded.source
• 2007July 24 – Five Bulgarian nurses are released from Libyan prison after eight and a half years spent behind bars in Benghazi and Tripoli, marking the end of the so-called "HIV trial in Libya".source
• 2007October 10 – Valve Software releases The Orange Box on Windows and Xbox 360.source
• 2008November 19 – Claudia Castillo of Spain becomes the first person to have a successful trachea transplant using a tissue-engineered organ.source
• 2009May 25 – North Korea announces that it has conducted a second successful nuclear test in North Hamgyong Province. The United Nations Security Council condemns the reported test.source
• 2009June 11 – The outbreak of the H1N1 influenza strain, commonly referred to as "swine flu", is deemed a global pandemic.source
• 2009September 21 – China becomes the first country to succeed a completed clinical trial by a company for the 2009/H1N1 vaccine in the world during the swine flu pandemic.source
• 2010August 10 – The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns.source
• 2011April 17 – The 2011 PlayStation Network outage begins, becoming one of the largest data breaches ever recorded, and exposing personal data from 77 million accounts on the platform. The outage lasted 23 days.source
• 2011April 25–28 – The 2011 Super Outbreak forms in the Southern, Midwest and Eastern United States with a tornado count of 362; killing 324 and injuring over 2,200.source
• 2011June 28 – The Food and Agriculture Organization announces the eradication of the cattle plague rinderpest from the world.source
• 2011October 31 – Date selected by the UN as the symbolic date when global population reached seven billion.source
• 2012June 6 – 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak first identified.source
• 2012December 10 – The Séléka overthrows the government of the Central African Republic which leads to the outbreak of a Civil war.source
• 2013February 21 – American scientists use a 3D printer to create a living lab-grown ear from collagen and animal ear cell cultures. In the future, it is hoped that similar ears could be grown to order as transplants for human patients with ear trauma or amputation.source
• 2013November 17 – A tornado outbreak occurs in Illinois, United States. An EF4 tornado in Washington causes $935 million ($ billion adjusted) of property damage, killing 3 people.source
• 2014February 13 – Belgium becomes the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia for terminally ill patients of any age.source
• 2014February – The West African Ebola virus epidemic begins, infecting at least 28,616 people and killing at least 11,310 people, the most severe both in terms of numbers of infections and casualties.source
• 2014May 5 – The World Health Organization identifies the spread of poliomyelitis in at least 10 countries as a major worldwide health emergency.source
• 2014August 8 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the Ebola outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.source
• 2014November 1 – Bangladesh faces a nationwide blackout.source
• 2015April 29 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that rubella has been eradicated from the Americas.source
• 2015June 30 – Cuba becomes the first country in the world to eradicate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.source
• 2015October 3 – A United States airstrike on a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Afghanistan kills an estimated 20 people.source
• 2016January 28 – The World Health Organization announces an outbreak of the Zika virus.source
• 2016December 22 – A study finds the VSV-EBOV vaccine against the Ebola virus between 70 and 100% effective, thus making it the first proven vaccine against the disease.source
• 2017April 15 – Emma Morano, an Italian supercentenarian, becomes the last known person born in the 19th century to die.source
• 2017June 25 – The World Health Organization estimates that the 2016–17 Yemen cholera outbreak has over 200,000 cases.source
• 2018January 20–22 – The US government enters a federal government shutdown as a result of a dispute over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.source
• 2018March 26 – More than 100 Russian diplomats are expelled by more than 20 countries in the wake of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.source
• 2018May 25 – The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect, imposing strict privacy controls for European citizens worldwide.source
• 2018June 19 – Canada becomes the first major industrialised country to legalise cannabis for recreational use. The Bill which legalises cannabis took effect on October 17.source
• 2018June 20 – After widespread criticism, US President Donald Trump signs an executive order suspending his zero-tolerance family separation policies, though thousands of undocumented children were never reunited with their families even after the policy was suspended.source
• 2018August 1 – The 2018 Kivu Ebola outbreak begins in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It becomes the second-deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus on November 29, surpassed only by the 2013 West African Ebola virus epidemic.source
• 2018August 20 – 15 year old Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg starts to stay out of school in an attempt to give attention to the climate change issue.source
• 2018November 28 – Chinese scientist He Jiankui, at a public conference in Hong Kong, announces that he has altered the DNA of twin human girls born earlier in the month to try to make them resistant to infection with the HIV virus; he also reveals the possible second pregnancy of another gene-modified baby.source
• 2019January 2 – Adventist Health System rebranded its facilities to the trade name AdventHealth.source
• 2019May 3 – The number of deaths from the Kivu Ebola epidemic exceeds 1,000. It is the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, only surpassed by the Western African Ebola virus epidemic of 2013–2016.source
• 2019May 8 – A British teenager, Isabelle Holdaway, 17, is reported to be the first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.source
• 2019June 9 – 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests: Over 1 million people in Hong Kong protest against proposed legislation regarding extradition to mainland China. It is the largest protest in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.source
• 2019June 16 – A large-scale power outage hits Argentina, Uruguay and parts of Paraguay, affecting nearly 50 million people.source
• 2019July 17 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the Kivu Ebola epidemic to be a public health emergency of international concern.source
• 2019July 30 – India bans triple talaq.source
• 2019September 16 – A gas explosion in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia sets off a fire in a bioweapons plant that houses viruses including smallpox, ebola and anthrax.source
• 2019October 4 – 2019–20 Hong Kong protests: Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and the Chief Executive in Council invokes the Emergency Regulations Ordinance and banning the face mask in public gatherings with immediate effect.source
• 2019October 14 – A New York Times investigation reveals that Russian planes had bombed at least 50 hospitals and clinics in opposition-held Idlib, Syria.source
• 2019October 25 – Tourists visit the summit of Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock) for the last time, as a ban on climbing the famous rock in Australia's Northern Territory comes into effect.source
• 2019November 19 – Google enters the video game market with the launch of Stadia.source
• 2019December 1 – COVID-19 pandemic: First known human case of Coronavirus disease 2019, in Wuhan, Hubei, China.source
• 2019December 19 – A locust plague devastates 173,000 acres (70,000 hectares) of crop and grazing land in Ethiopia and Somalia.source
• 2019December 31 – COVID-19 pandemic: First official reports of "viral pneumonia" from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.source
• 2020January 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: Chinese authorities publicly confirm human-to-human transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.source
• 2020January 23 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the initial COVID-19 outbreak, is quarantined, with all scheduled public transport services and intercity flights halted.source
• 2020March 9 – COVID-19 pandemic: Italy becomes the first country to implement a nationwide quarantine in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.source
• 2020March 24 – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reports that the domestically transmitted epidemic is now under control. Two days later, China temporarily suspends entry for foreign nationals with visas or residence permits, effective midnight on March 28.source
• 2020March 26 – Global COVID-19 cases reach 500,000, with nearly 23,000 deaths confirmed. The U.S. surpasses China and Italy in the total number of known COVID-19 cases, with at least 81,321 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.source
• 2020April 5 – COVID-19 pandemic: The first case of COVID-19 in a zoo animal is reported: a four-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.source
• 2020April 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: Japan declares a state of emergency in response to COVID-19 and finalises a stimulus package worth 108 trillion yen (US$990 billion), equal to 20% of the country's GDP.source
• 2020April 10 – Kivu Ebola epidemic: The Democratic Republic of the Congo reports the first case of Ebola since February 2020. The outbreak has killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018.source
• 2020April 14 – U.S. president Donald Trump announces that the U.S. will suspend funding towards the World Health Organization (WHO) pending an investigation of its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its relationship with China.source
• 2020April 28 – The Indian Ministry of External Affairs condemns the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom after its annual report recommends placing India on the "countries of particular concern" blacklist over the Citizenship Amendment Act, the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status, and controversial comments made by Home Minister Amit Shah, among others.source
• 2020May 4 – A team of British and Kenyan scientists announce the discovery of Microsporidia MB, a parasitic microbe in the Microsporidia fungi group that blocks mosquitos from carrying malaria, potentially paving the way for the control of malaria.source
• 2020May 12 – Gunmen storm a maternity hospital and kill 24 people, including two newborn babies, in Dashte Barchi, a majority-Shia neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan. In a separate incident in Kuz Kunar, 32 people are killed at a funeral by a suicide bomber.source
• 2020May 14 – The UN warns of a global mental health crisis caused by isolation, fear, uncertainty and economic turmoil.source
• 2020May 18 – In a historic move, the World Health Organization holds its annual World Health Assembly using video conferencing instead of in-person meetings.source
• 2020June 1 – Kivu Ebola epidemic: The World Health Organization reports six new cases of Ebola, and UNICEF reports five deaths, in a renewed outbreak of the disease in Mbandaka, Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.source
• 2020July 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: Thousands of people rally outside the House of the National Assembly of Serbia in Belgrade in response to stricter lockdown measures proposed by President Aleksandar Vučić following an increase of cases in the city.source
• 2020August 11 – COVID-19 pandemic: Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that Russia has approved the world's first COVID-19 vaccine.source
• 2020October 15 – 2020 Thai protests: The Government of Thailand declares a "severe" state of emergency banning gatherings of five or more people, initiating a crackdown on demonstrations and imposing media censorship.source
• 2020November 9 – COVID-19 pandemic: The first successful phase III trial of a COVID-19 vaccine is announced by drug companies Pfizer and BioNTech, which is 90% effective according to interim results.source
• 20202020 United States presidential election: The election of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States and Kamala Harris as the 49th Vice President of the United States is called by many news media organizations after remaining vote counts (November 7) come in from key states delayed by an influx of mail-in ballots caused by the pandemic, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.source
• 2020December 5 – COVID-19 pandemic: Russia begins mass vaccination against COVID-19 with the Sputnik V candidate.source
• 2020December 10 – COVID-19 pandemic: The United States and Saudi Arabia approve the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, while Argentina approves Sputnik V.source
• 2020December 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: A highly infectious new strain of SARS-CoV-2 spreading in Europe and Australia provokes international border closures.source
• 2020December 30 – COVID-19 pandemic: The United Kingdom approves AstraZeneca-Oxford's vaccine, the second one available. The vaccine is easier to store as it only requires normal fridge temperatures, making distribution easier.source
• 2021January 13 – In Lyon, France, the first transplant of both arms and shoulders is performed on an Icelandic patient at the Édouard Herriot Hospital.source
• 2021January 15 – COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 passes 2 million.source
• 2021January 27 – A near-total ban on abortion comes into effect in Poland.source
• 2021January 29 – COVID-19 pandemic: The European Union invokes Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol following a row over COVID-19 vaccine supplies before reversing the decision.source
• 2021February 1 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 100 million.source
• 2021February 9 – COVID-19 pandemic: A joint WHO–China investigation into the source of the outbreak concludes. Investigators deem a Wuhan laboratory leak to be "extremely unlikely", with a "natural reservoir" in bats being a more likely origin.source
• 2021February 24 – COVID-19 pandemic: the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative delivers its first vaccines, delivering 600,000 doses for healthcare workers in Ghana.source
• 2021March 25 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 500 million.source
• 2021April 23 – UEFA announces that due to a lack of guarantees regarding spectators caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland would be removed as a tournament host for the UEFA Euro 2020.source
• 2021April 24 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 1 billion. Half of these doses have been administered in just three countries (the United States, China and India).source
• 2021May 12 – COVID-19 pandemic in India: The country's death toll exceeds 250,000. Delhi cremation grounds were running out of places while hundreds of bodies were reported washed up on the banks of the Ganges.source
• 2021May 18–May 22 – The Eurovision Song Contest 2021 is held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, after the cancellation of the 2020 contest due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The contest is won by Italian entrants Måneskin with the song "Zitti e buoni".source
• 2021June 11–June 13 – World leaders meet at the 47th G7 summit, hosted by the United Kingdom, with topics of discussion including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the corporate taxation of multinationals.source
• 2021June 29 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 3 billion.source
• 2021July 8 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 4 million.source
• 2021July 11 – Thousands of Cubans, most of them young, attend a rare anti-government protest in San Antonio de los Baños to protest the increased food and medicine shortages brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.source
• 2021July 23–August 8 – The 2020 Summer Olympics were held in Tokyo, Japan. They were originally scheduled for 24 July–9 August 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.source
• 2021August 9 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report, which concludes that the effects of human-caused climate change are now "widespread, rapid, and intensifying".source
• 2021August 24–September 5 – The 2020 Summer Paralympics were held in Tokyo, Japan. They were originally scheduled for 25 August–6 September 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.source
• 2021October 1 – The 2020 World Expo in Dubai begins. Its opening was originally scheduled for 20 October 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.source
• 2021October 6–October 10 – The 2021 UEFA Nations League Finals is held in Italy, and is won by France. They were originally scheduled for 2–6 June 2021, but were moved following the rescheduling of UEFA Euro 2020 to June and July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.source
• 2021October 6 – The World Health Organization endorses the first malaria vaccine.source
• 2021November 26 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization convenes an emergency meeting in Geneva amid concerns over Omicron, a highly mutated variant of COVID-19 first identified in South Africa that appears more infectious than Delta.source
• 2021December 19 – The 2021 Hong Kong legislative election, originally scheduled for 6 September 2020 but postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is held.source
• 2022January 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of COVID-19 cases exceeds 300 million worldwide.source
• 2022January 10 – The first successful heart transplant from a pig to a human patient occurs in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.source
• 2022January 16 – World No. 1 tennis champion Novak Djokovic is deported from Australia following a high-profile legal case regarding his COVID-19 vaccination status, preventing his participation in the 2022 Australian Open.source
• 2022January 28 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of vaccinations administered worldwide exceeds 10 billion.source
• 2022March 2 – The United Nations reports that over a million refugees have now fled from Ukraine to other countries.source
• 2022March 7 – COVID-19 pandemic: The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 6 million.source
• 2022March 31 – Expo 2020 closes in Dubai after a 6-month run; originally scheduled for 10 April 2021, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.source
• 2022April 13 – COVID-19 pandemic: The number of confirmed cases exceeds 500 million worldwide.source
• 2022May 6 – 2022 monkeypox outbreak: An outbreak of monkeypox begins when the first monkeypox virus case is reported in London, the United Kingdom.source
• 2022May 20 – 2022 monkeypox outbreak: The World Health Organization (WHO) holds an emergency meeting to discuss the spread of monkeypox in nearly a dozen countries, as the number of reported cases reaches 100.source
• 2022July 23 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the recent monkeypox outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, as the number of reported cases exceeds 17,000 in 75 countries.source
• 2022September 1 – The UN releases a report stating that the Chinese government's Xinjiang internment camps and treatment of Uyghurs may constitute crimes against humanity.source
• 2022October 29 – At least 158 people are killed and another 197 injured in a crowd crush during Halloween festivities in Seoul, South Korea.source
• 2022November 15 – The world population reaches approximately 8 billion.source
• 2022December 7 – After substantial protests against China's Zero-COVID policies, the Chinese government eases on its COVID restrictions.source
• 2023March 23 – World Athletics, the global governing body for athletics, bans trans women who have gone through male puberty from competing in female events.source
• 2023March 24–27 – A tornado outbreak kills at least 26 people in Mississippi and Alabama. This includes a violent tornado which devastated the city of Rolling Fork and the town of Silver City in Mississippi, killing 16 people and injuring 165 others.source
• 2023March 31 – April 1 – A historic and widespread tornado outbreak occurs in the United States, killing 33 people, injuring more than 218 others, and caused over $5.4 billion in damage. This tornado outbreak produced 147 tornadoes, making it the third-largest tornado outbreak in history.source
• 2023April 24 – India surpasses China as most populous country.source
• 2023April 25 – A mass cult suicide is uncovered in Shakahola forest in Kenya. 429 followers of the Good News International Ministries are found in shallow graves throughout the forest, with over 613 people missing.source
• 2023May 5 – The World Health Organization ends its declaration of COVID-19 being a global health emergency, but continues to refer to it as a pandemic.source
• 2023May 11 – The World Health Organization ends its declaration of mpox being a global health emergency.source
• 2023August 21 – Saudi Arabia is accused of mass killing hundreds of African migrants attempting to cross its border with Yemen.source
• 2023October 17 – An explosion occurs at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, where displaced Palestinians are taking refuge. Many fatalities are reported, but estimates vary significantly, from 100 to as many as 471, depending on the source.source
• 2023November 9 – U.S. surgeons at NYU Langone Health announce the world's first whole eye transplant.source
• 2024July 19 – Global IT outages impact a variety of businesses and organisations across the world.source
• 2024August 14 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares mpox a public health emergency of international concern for the second time in two years, following the spread of the virus in African countries.source
• 2024October 24 – The first case of the 2024 Kwango province disease outbreak is reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.source
• 2025January 15 – Colossal Biosciences and University of Melbourne create the world's first artificial womb in marsupials as part of their project toward de-extinction of the thylacine.source
• 2025April 28 – A widespread power outage affects Spain and Portugal for hours. Andorra is affected for a few seconds while southern France is lightly affected.source
• 2025November 25 – A report published by the United Nations shows that Indonesian capital Jakarta has surpassed Japanese capital Tokyo as the world's largest city, with a population of 42 million people.source