Bubonic Plague Outbreaks
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The shadow
The shadow knows!
nivek
As Above So Below
Bubonic plague PANIC: China declares disease emergency as Black Death cases rapidly rise
CHINA has announced an emergency after a three-year-old boy contracted the bubonic plague in the south-west of the country. The young boy was infected with the disease in a rural village in Menghai county, Yunnan. The case of the deadly disease was reported in the China last week before being confirmed on Sunday. The child is in a stable condition after contracting the bubonic plague in the Chinese province.
Following the confirmed case, Chinese officials in the region declared a level IV emergency response to avoid another pandemic spreading after the devastating coronavirus outbreak.
Three dead plague-ridden rats were previously found in the village in Yunnan triggering a national screening programme. A rat infestation has been announced in the village of Xiding in Menghai, according to the state-run Global Times.
The bubonic plague is a bacterial disease spread by fleas who live in rodents. The deadly disease can kill adults in less than 24 hours if they are not treated in time. The plague is also known as the ‘Black Death’ as it killed nearly 200 million people in the 14 century.
In August, a case of the disease was reported in the northern Inner Mongolia region in China. After this case was announced, Chinese authorities rose the threat level to 3 until the end of the year across the country.
Mongolia has also seen 22 reported cases of the plague, six of which have been confirmed. The most recent was a 25-year-old woman who has been hospitalised with the disease after eating an infected marmot. She has been put in isolation in the Khovd province with 19 people she contacted.
Seventeen provinces in Mongolia have now reported cases in July and August as infections continue to rise in the country and in China.
In the Mongolian province of Uvurkhangai, three cases of the plague were reported as fears grow it could spread over the border. Dorj Narangerel, head of public relations and surveillance department of the health ministry said: "Three suspected cases of the plague are now under isolation at a local hospital. "They are members of the same family or mother and her two children."
As the bubonic plague is normally spread by wild rodents, there is a constant concern over an outbreak of the disease due to China and Mongolia’s mountainous regions.
Hunting marmots in Mongolia is illegal, however many locals view the rodent as a delicacy and ignore the law. Three of the six confirmed cases in Mongolia have already died from the disease. The latest was a 38-year-old man in the Khovsgol province earlier this month.
Due to Mongolia and China’s rising cases, Russia has taken major steps to stop the possible spread of the disease across its borders with the two countries. Tens of thousands of people have been vaccinated in Russia’s border regions in Tuva and Altai.
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CHINA has announced an emergency after a three-year-old boy contracted the bubonic plague in the south-west of the country. The young boy was infected with the disease in a rural village in Menghai county, Yunnan. The case of the deadly disease was reported in the China last week before being confirmed on Sunday. The child is in a stable condition after contracting the bubonic plague in the Chinese province.
Following the confirmed case, Chinese officials in the region declared a level IV emergency response to avoid another pandemic spreading after the devastating coronavirus outbreak.
Three dead plague-ridden rats were previously found in the village in Yunnan triggering a national screening programme. A rat infestation has been announced in the village of Xiding in Menghai, according to the state-run Global Times.
The bubonic plague is a bacterial disease spread by fleas who live in rodents. The deadly disease can kill adults in less than 24 hours if they are not treated in time. The plague is also known as the ‘Black Death’ as it killed nearly 200 million people in the 14 century.
In August, a case of the disease was reported in the northern Inner Mongolia region in China. After this case was announced, Chinese authorities rose the threat level to 3 until the end of the year across the country.
Mongolia has also seen 22 reported cases of the plague, six of which have been confirmed. The most recent was a 25-year-old woman who has been hospitalised with the disease after eating an infected marmot. She has been put in isolation in the Khovd province with 19 people she contacted.
Seventeen provinces in Mongolia have now reported cases in July and August as infections continue to rise in the country and in China.
In the Mongolian province of Uvurkhangai, three cases of the plague were reported as fears grow it could spread over the border. Dorj Narangerel, head of public relations and surveillance department of the health ministry said: "Three suspected cases of the plague are now under isolation at a local hospital. "They are members of the same family or mother and her two children."
As the bubonic plague is normally spread by wild rodents, there is a constant concern over an outbreak of the disease due to China and Mongolia’s mountainous regions.
Hunting marmots in Mongolia is illegal, however many locals view the rodent as a delicacy and ignore the law. Three of the six confirmed cases in Mongolia have already died from the disease. The latest was a 38-year-old man in the Khovsgol province earlier this month.
Due to Mongolia and China’s rising cases, Russia has taken major steps to stop the possible spread of the disease across its borders with the two countries. Tens of thousands of people have been vaccinated in Russia’s border regions in Tuva and Altai.
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AD1184
Celestial
Eating plague-bearing marmots is not a common past-time of twenty-something women in my neck of the woods.
nivek
As Above So Below
Black Death’s rapid spread in 2nd outbreak could have lessons for COVID-19, study says
A new study of thousands of personal wills, parish registers and other documents on deaths over a 300-year span reveals that plague outbreaks in England spread four times faster in the 17th century than they did in the 14th century.
The number of people infected by the Black Death of 1348 doubled about every 43 days, but during the second outbreak, coined the Great Plague of 1665, the number doubled every 11 days, according researchers with McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.
Both diseases — characterized by black boils that oozed blood and pus — were caused by the same bacterium, Y. pestis.
Why the plague epidemics’ growth rate increased fourfold over time is not clear, but the researchers speculate several different reasons: bacterial mutations, dramatic climate differences, growing population densities or different modes of transmission from one century to the next.
The team says records of epidemics past can offer lessons for understanding the transmission patterns of COVID-19 and other modern outbreaks, and how factors that drive their spread have changed over time. Diving deep into epidemic growth rates, such as those explored in the Canadian study, have been at the center of public health policy and discussion for the current pandemic.
The study was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It is an astounding difference in how fast plague epidemics grew,” study lead author David Earn, a statistics professor at McMaster University, said in a news release. “At that time, people typically wrote wills because they were dying or they feared they might die imminently, so we hypothesized that the dates of wills would be a good proxy for the spread of fear, and of death itself.”
“No one living in London in the 14th or 17th century could have imagined how these records might be used hundreds of years later to understand the spread of disease,” Earn added.
The concept of a disease getting worse the second time around mirrors that of the current pandemic, but on a much smaller time frame. Experts have been saying for months that the introduction of cooler temperatures and resulting changed behaviors could lead to a more intense wave of coronavirus cases and deaths.
The team of statisticians, biologists and evolutionary geneticists says the plagues likely spread via bites from fleas (bubonic plague) that got infected from rats, rather than human-to-human contact (pneumonic transmission).
However, the researchers admit they cannot confirm or deny this hypothesis. But it does offer an explanation behind the expedited spread in the 17th century.
Disease spread in the 14th century could have been driven by rats and fleas, “with human infection and mortality as a secondary consequence.” Then in the 17th century when the plague spread to people’s lungs, the resulting pneumonia could have made human-to-human spread easier and faster via coughing, like the novel coronavirus today.
Dr. William Schaffner, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told CNBC that he expects the U.S. to experience “a substantial third wave” of infections complicated by winter spread of the seasonal flu and COVID-19 fatigue.
“I’m pretty glum at the moment because it does look as though in the majority of states there’s an increasing number of cases,” Schaffner told the outlet. “There’s a growing sense of coronavirus fatigue out there. People really want to get back to the old normal.”
It’s important to note that COVID-19 has an “infection fatality ratio” that’s “substantially lower than for the 1918 influenza and much lower than for the historical plague epidemics studied here,” the researchers wrote in their study.
“Nevertheless, COVID-19 has had a much greater impact than seasonal influenza epidemics, which cause of order 500,000 deaths worldwide annually,” they continued.
Other explanations behind the plague’s expedited spread
The researchers also hypothesize that the bacterium that caused the Black Death outbreaks could have evolved to become more infectious. But they said they aren’t sure how the “evolution of resistance” could have accelerated epidemics over centuries.
Another idea is that human population size and density increased “enormously” from the 14th to 17th centuries, which could have aided the spread of infectious diseases because of crowded living conditions.
Lastly, the researchers cite a wave of cooler temperatures that struck Northern Europe in the 17th century that could have affected transmission. But again, the team notes it’s hard to make that conclusion “due to the lack of consensus about climate and weather variations in Medieval/Renaissance Europe.”
.
A new study of thousands of personal wills, parish registers and other documents on deaths over a 300-year span reveals that plague outbreaks in England spread four times faster in the 17th century than they did in the 14th century.
The number of people infected by the Black Death of 1348 doubled about every 43 days, but during the second outbreak, coined the Great Plague of 1665, the number doubled every 11 days, according researchers with McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.
Both diseases — characterized by black boils that oozed blood and pus — were caused by the same bacterium, Y. pestis.
Why the plague epidemics’ growth rate increased fourfold over time is not clear, but the researchers speculate several different reasons: bacterial mutations, dramatic climate differences, growing population densities or different modes of transmission from one century to the next.
The team says records of epidemics past can offer lessons for understanding the transmission patterns of COVID-19 and other modern outbreaks, and how factors that drive their spread have changed over time. Diving deep into epidemic growth rates, such as those explored in the Canadian study, have been at the center of public health policy and discussion for the current pandemic.
The study was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It is an astounding difference in how fast plague epidemics grew,” study lead author David Earn, a statistics professor at McMaster University, said in a news release. “At that time, people typically wrote wills because they were dying or they feared they might die imminently, so we hypothesized that the dates of wills would be a good proxy for the spread of fear, and of death itself.”
“No one living in London in the 14th or 17th century could have imagined how these records might be used hundreds of years later to understand the spread of disease,” Earn added.
The concept of a disease getting worse the second time around mirrors that of the current pandemic, but on a much smaller time frame. Experts have been saying for months that the introduction of cooler temperatures and resulting changed behaviors could lead to a more intense wave of coronavirus cases and deaths.
The team of statisticians, biologists and evolutionary geneticists says the plagues likely spread via bites from fleas (bubonic plague) that got infected from rats, rather than human-to-human contact (pneumonic transmission).
However, the researchers admit they cannot confirm or deny this hypothesis. But it does offer an explanation behind the expedited spread in the 17th century.
Disease spread in the 14th century could have been driven by rats and fleas, “with human infection and mortality as a secondary consequence.” Then in the 17th century when the plague spread to people’s lungs, the resulting pneumonia could have made human-to-human spread easier and faster via coughing, like the novel coronavirus today.
Dr. William Schaffner, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told CNBC that he expects the U.S. to experience “a substantial third wave” of infections complicated by winter spread of the seasonal flu and COVID-19 fatigue.
“I’m pretty glum at the moment because it does look as though in the majority of states there’s an increasing number of cases,” Schaffner told the outlet. “There’s a growing sense of coronavirus fatigue out there. People really want to get back to the old normal.”
It’s important to note that COVID-19 has an “infection fatality ratio” that’s “substantially lower than for the 1918 influenza and much lower than for the historical plague epidemics studied here,” the researchers wrote in their study.
“Nevertheless, COVID-19 has had a much greater impact than seasonal influenza epidemics, which cause of order 500,000 deaths worldwide annually,” they continued.
Other explanations behind the plague’s expedited spread
The researchers also hypothesize that the bacterium that caused the Black Death outbreaks could have evolved to become more infectious. But they said they aren’t sure how the “evolution of resistance” could have accelerated epidemics over centuries.
Another idea is that human population size and density increased “enormously” from the 14th to 17th centuries, which could have aided the spread of infectious diseases because of crowded living conditions.
Lastly, the researchers cite a wave of cooler temperatures that struck Northern Europe in the 17th century that could have affected transmission. But again, the team notes it’s hard to make that conclusion “due to the lack of consensus about climate and weather variations in Medieval/Renaissance Europe.”
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The shadow
The shadow knows!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-dead-dr-congo-plague-outbreak.amp
New outbreak in Africa.
New outbreak in Africa.
nivek
As Above So Below
Lake Tahoe Chipmunks Have Bubonic Plague
When California officials closed parts of South Lake Tahoe this week, the news sounded alarming: A dead chipmunk had tested positive for bubonic plague, the rare yet highly infectious bacterial disease responsible for killing millions of people in Europe during the Middle Ages.
Lake Tahoe, which is perhaps best known as an outdoor playground for celebrities and the ultrarich in gated compounds, has seen a share of calamities lately, such as wildfires and earthquakes, but the plague scare was taken in stride. “We all need to be cautious around animals that can carry it,” according to the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the U.S. Forest Service, which announced the closings Monday.
These days the plague, once known as the Black Death, is treatable with antibiotics, and it is not that unusual for the pathogen associated with it to be found among the rodents of California, including in the higher-elevation mountainous areas of El Dorado County, authorities said.
The basic advice: Keep yourself and your pets away from chipmunks, squirrels and other wild rodents that may carry fleas infected with the disease — and wait for authorities to spray insecticide to kill the fleas.
The closings affected the Taylor Creek Visitor Center and Kiva Beach, popular picturesque spots with nature trails near Lake Tahoe, and their parking areas, which will be closed through Friday and are likely to reopen this weekend. The visitor center is about 3 miles north from the city of South Lake Tahoe, California, in El Dorado County, which is east of Sacramento.
People can be exposed to plague through a bite from an infected flea, contact with an infected rodent or exposure to an infected pet such as a sick cat. Early symptoms can include high fever, chills, nausea, weakness and swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpit or groin.
(More on the link)
.
When California officials closed parts of South Lake Tahoe this week, the news sounded alarming: A dead chipmunk had tested positive for bubonic plague, the rare yet highly infectious bacterial disease responsible for killing millions of people in Europe during the Middle Ages.
Lake Tahoe, which is perhaps best known as an outdoor playground for celebrities and the ultrarich in gated compounds, has seen a share of calamities lately, such as wildfires and earthquakes, but the plague scare was taken in stride. “We all need to be cautious around animals that can carry it,” according to the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the U.S. Forest Service, which announced the closings Monday.
These days the plague, once known as the Black Death, is treatable with antibiotics, and it is not that unusual for the pathogen associated with it to be found among the rodents of California, including in the higher-elevation mountainous areas of El Dorado County, authorities said.
The basic advice: Keep yourself and your pets away from chipmunks, squirrels and other wild rodents that may carry fleas infected with the disease — and wait for authorities to spray insecticide to kill the fleas.
The closings affected the Taylor Creek Visitor Center and Kiva Beach, popular picturesque spots with nature trails near Lake Tahoe, and their parking areas, which will be closed through Friday and are likely to reopen this weekend. The visitor center is about 3 miles north from the city of South Lake Tahoe, California, in El Dorado County, which is east of Sacramento.
People can be exposed to plague through a bite from an infected flea, contact with an infected rodent or exposure to an infected pet such as a sick cat. Early symptoms can include high fever, chills, nausea, weakness and swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpit or groin.
(More on the link)
.
The shadow
The shadow knows!
A case of bubonic plague was reported in Oregon. Here’s what to know
US cases of plague are exceedingly rare, and modern therapies are effective when patients are treated in time