Plague is most common in Madagascar, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru. However, potential plague natural foci are distributed worldwide.
Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis, a zoonotic bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas. It is transmitted between animals and humans by the bite of infected fleas, direct contact, inhalation and rarely, ingestion of infective materials.
Plague can be a very severe disease in people, with a case-fatality ratio of 30%-60% if left untreated. In 2015 there were 320 cases reported worldwide, including 77 deaths. Historically, plague was responsible for widespread pandemics with high mortality. It was known as the "Black Death" during the fourteenth century, causing an estimated 50 million deaths, approximately half of them in Asia and Africa and the other half in Europe, where a quarter of the population succumbed.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/plague/en/
Preventive measures include informing people when zoonotic plague is active in their environment and advising them to take precautions against flea bites and not to handle animal carcasses in plague-endemic areas. In plague endemic areas and during bubonic plague outbreaks, flea and reservoir (usually rodents) controls must be implemented.
Pneumonic plague is highly contagious. Close contact persons must be kept under medical surveillance and must receive a prophylaxis with antibiotics during 7 days.
Plague vaccines were widely used before the antibiotics era. The current vaccines have not been shown to be very effective against pneumonic plague and are not recommended by WHO out of for high-risk groups (e.g. laboratory personnel who are constantly exposed to the risk of contamination).
Children's Sunday School Song about the ten plagues
https://www.kidssundayschool.com/579/gradeschool/the-plague-song.php
THE BLACK DEATH
Most infamous of all was the Black Death, a medieval pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It reached Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 25 million people. The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which one in five residents died.
The first well-documented pandemic was the Plague of Justinian, which began in 541 A.D. Named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, it killed up to 10,000 people a day in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey), according to ancient historians. Modern estimates suggest half of Europe's population was wiped out before the plague disappeared in the 700s.
The cause of plague wasn't discovered until the most recent global outbreak, which started in China in 1855 and didn't officially end until 1959. The first breakthrough came in Hong Kong in 1894 when researchers isolated the rod-shaped bacillus responsible—Yersinia pestis. The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century. A few years later, in China, doctors noticed that rats showed very similar plague symptoms to people, and that human victims often had flea bites.
The animal reservoir for plague includes mice, camels, chipmunks, prairie dogs, rabbits, and squirrels, but the most dangerous for humans are rats, especially the urban sort. The disease is usually transmitted by the rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/the-plague/
Because people did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment–retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness. By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God’s forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers
Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it.
Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia Pestis, a zoonotic bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas. It is transmitted between animals and humans by the bite of infected fleas, direct contact, inhalation and rarely, ingestion of infective materials.
Plague can be a very severe disease in people, with a case-fatality ratio of 30%-60% if left untreated. In 2015 there were 320 cases reported worldwide, including 77 deaths. Historically, plague was responsible for widespread pandemics with high mortality. It was known as the "Black Death" during the fourteenth century, causing an estimated 50 million deaths, approximately half of them in Asia and Africa and the other half in Europe, where a quarter of the population succumbed.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/plague/en/
Preventive measures include informing people when zoonotic plague is active in their environment and advising them to take precautions against flea bites and not to handle animal carcasses in plague-endemic areas. In plague endemic areas and during bubonic plague outbreaks, flea and reservoir (usually rodents) controls must be implemented.
Pneumonic plague is highly contagious. Close contact persons must be kept under medical surveillance and must receive a prophylaxis with antibiotics during 7 days.
Plague vaccines were widely used before the antibiotics era. The current vaccines have not been shown to be very effective against pneumonic plague and are not recommended by WHO out of for high-risk groups (e.g. laboratory personnel who are constantly exposed to the risk of contamination).
Children's Sunday School Song about the ten plagues
https://www.kidssundayschool.com/579/gradeschool/the-plague-song.php
THE BLACK DEATH
Most infamous of all was the Black Death, a medieval pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It reached Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 25 million people. The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which one in five residents died.
The first well-documented pandemic was the Plague of Justinian, which began in 541 A.D. Named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, it killed up to 10,000 people a day in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey), according to ancient historians. Modern estimates suggest half of Europe's population was wiped out before the plague disappeared in the 700s.
The cause of plague wasn't discovered until the most recent global outbreak, which started in China in 1855 and didn't officially end until 1959. The first breakthrough came in Hong Kong in 1894 when researchers isolated the rod-shaped bacillus responsible—Yersinia pestis. The French biologist Alexandre Yersin discovered this germ at the end of the 19th century. A few years later, in China, doctors noticed that rats showed very similar plague symptoms to people, and that human victims often had flea bites.
The animal reservoir for plague includes mice, camels, chipmunks, prairie dogs, rabbits, and squirrels, but the most dangerous for humans are rats, especially the urban sort. The disease is usually transmitted by the rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/the-plague/
Because people did not understand the biology of the disease, many people believed that the Black Death was a kind of divine punishment–retribution for sins against God such as greed, blasphemy, heresy, fornication and worldliness. By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God’s forgiveness. Some people believed that the way to do this was to purge their communities of heretics and other troublemakers
Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly mitigated the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it.
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