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Plague outbreak or rather scare tactics in America?
In 2016, four people in the US died from a form of plague; This year, several US citizens became infected with the bacillus. Among the epidemics, the plague was one of the worst. Threatens the US now a disease wave or greed the Yellow Press for headlines?
Prairie dogs and rabbits
In Coconino County, Arizona, at the beginning of August, a number of prairie dogs and rabbits allegedly died from the plague. On the dead animals the pathogen Yersinia pestis was found.
Rodents like prairie dogs are carriers of the plague bacteria. As a very social animals, the prairie dogs transmit the plague to each other. (Miraculix63 / fotolia) CDC?
Since then, the local press tried as a guide in disease protection: No wild rabbits or strange cats caress, do not cuddle with prairie dogs, so are some tips that, taken in themselves, make sense.
Nothing new
"By itself" in the sense that these tips are always correct. Wild animals can transmit diseases to humans. In the Grand Canyon, for example, the authorities warn of signs of the "most dangerous animal in the Grand Canyon". It is not a rattlesnake or puma, but a popular mountain squirrel that feeds tourists and is reminiscent of A and B croissants at Walt Disney. It can cause meningitis with its bite.
The plague was always there
A plague flea in the ear set the disease warnings in that the pathogen was never gone in America. There has not been an epidemic for more than a hundred years, but there was a reservoir in the southwest, in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado or Nevada.
The plague came with the immigrants
Yersina Pestis came to North America via a merchant ship during a plague epidemic that was raging in Southeast Asia from 1894. The pathogen infected American rodents.
Infections on wild animals
People who became infected in the US were hunters who dealt with affected croissants or prairie dogs. In the 1980s, a woman fell ill when she overfished a squirrel with a lawnmower.
Where did the plague come from??
The origin of the great plague of the European Middle Ages was probably in Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia. The plague bacterium exists there especially in steppe marmots, and plague waves broke out regularly when the rodents left their burrow.
How did the plague spread??
The steppe nomads of Central Asia did not live together in masses. If the epidemic was persecuted in a camp, few people died. The Silk Road and especially Dschings Khan's empire brought the plague bacteria to West Asia and Europe.
Plague fleas on the Silk Road
It is probable that the wild rodents transmitted the plague to rats traveling with the caravans of the Silk Road via Afghanistan to Iran, from there to Baghdad and Constantinople and from there to Venice, Genoa and then to Central and Northern Europe. The time course of the plague waves coincides with the ways of the Silk Roads.
A zoonosis
Originally the plague is a zoonosis of marmots, rats and croakers. When people directly attack wild rodents, we talk about silvatic plague - the forest plague. Strictly speaking, steppe plague would be more appropriate. However, as most humans rarely come into direct contact with marmots or squirrels, such infections are rare.
Also other animals affected
The plague can affect about 200 mammals, including dogs and cats.
Yestina pestis
The bacterium Yersinia pestis triggers the disease. It is a mutation of
Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, which is safer for humans.
Distribution of the intermediate owners
How far the plague spreads depends on the intermediate hosts. If these live in large numbers in the environment of a large number of people, it can come to a plague epidemic.
As bad as a nuclear war
The plague waves of the late Middle Ages hit Europe like a nuclear war and remained as a trauma in the memory of the continent. In a single plague surge, only one in ten inhabitants survived in some major cities.
Why the plague was so destructive?
In the 14th century began the "Little Ice Age". The brown rats used to live in the city moats. Now they moved to the basement. The people wore furs all year round, a paradise for the rat fleas. Due to the cold, people stayed in the house much more than before.
The brown rat's flea
Rattus norvegicus carried the rat flea, and the pathogen Yersinia pestis. The population had also quadrupled since 900; the cities were overcrowded. For the plague so there were favorable conditions.
Ineffective Quarantine
Since the first plague outbreak in Messina, forty days of quarantine have been applied to incoming ships. However, the rats did not prevent this from running ashore on ship docks, and the pathogen conquered Europe.
Is the plague still a danger today??
Unlike the Middle Ages, when people were helpless against the disease, today antibiotics, streptomycin and chloramphenicol or combinations of tetracyclines and sulfonamides help. However, if the plague progresses and the pathogens enter the blood, the death rate is still very high today.
Pest wave in the USA?
In the US, no plague wave threatens. Danger exists only when the pathogen spreads among rats and thus comes directly into the vicinity of the people. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)