Diseases can be capitalized or not depending on certain situations. Primarily, diseases named after people should always be capitalized. Also, any disease that is the first word in a sentence or used in a title/headline should be capitalized.
Below is a list of diseases that should always be capitalized:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Lou Gehrig’s disease
- Middle East respiratory syndrome (abbreviated as MERS)
- Crohn’s disease
- Tourette syndrome
- Huntington’s disease
The following diseases are not generally capitalized unless used in a title or as the first word in a sentence:
- diabetes (including type 1 and type 2)
- flu
- influenza
- cold
- cancer
- heart disease
- coronavirus (except when abbreviated as COVID-19)
- kidney disease
- chronic lower respiratory disease
- pneumonia
- human immunodeficiency virus (except when abbreviated as HIV)
- acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (except when abbreviated as AIDS)
- hepatitis A/B/C
- malaria
- typhoid
- tetanus
- dengue
- tuberculosis
- celiac disease
- severe acute respiratory syndrome (expect when abbreviated as SARS)
- human papillomavirus infection (except when abbreviated as HPV)
