Before the 20th century, the bubonic plague was the main disease in and around Europe. In the last 1,500 years there have been three major pandemics of this disease. The first occurred between the 5th and 7th centuries and killed about 15 million people in the Mediterranean. basin and strongly affected the Byzantine, Sassanian and Roman empires.
A second, much larger epidemic, the Black Death, occurred in Europe in the fourteenth century, where more than 50 million people, or about 50% of the entire European population, died from the disease.
The third wave of this pandemic occurred globally in the 19th and 20th centuries, killing another 30 million people worldwide, many of them in China and India.
However, starting in the 1960s, cases decreased dramatically and bubonic plague is no longer considered a popular disease. Despite this, a new case was recently reported in the United States, which revived interest in this disease.
Although no longer not unusual in many portions of the world, bubonic plague still exists in geographic spaces and can spread via communities if the situations are right.
Bubonic plague, or plague for short, is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis. There are 3 types of plague caused by this pathogen, with another component of the body being the main site of infection: pneumonic plague is mainly of pulmonary origin, septicemia is mainly of blood origin, and bubonic plague is mainly of lymph node origin. origin.
Although one form can replace another infection, the form a user takes regularly depends on how they got infected.
Bubonic plague is a form of Y pestis infection that is transmitted through fleas that live on small animals, basically rodents such as space rats and box rats. These rodents serve as reservoirs for the bacteria: they have few or no symptoms, but can transmit the bacteria. to others, adding humans.
This transmission from rodents to humans occurs through fleas. These insects bite rats and can then jump and bite a human, injecting the plague bacteria into the human lymphatic formula. Then, through this formula, the bacteria reach the lymph nodes and the infection begins.
The main symptom of bubonic plague is inflammation of the lymph nodes in the neck, groin, thighs, and armpits. These swollen knots, called buboes, can cause the tissue around them to darken and die. They may also burst, releasing pus inside.
Other symptoms come with fever, headache, and vomiting, and the pathogen can spread to other parts of the body, such as the lungs and blood, causing other plague bureaucracies. Bubonic plague kills 30 to 60% of people, while pneumonic and septicaemia diseases remain deadly if left untreated.
So why was it so important all those years ago and is hardly heard of today?It is about having that mixture of vector (chip), reservoir (rodent) and bacteria (Y pestis), all mixed and in close contact with humans.
Before the 19th century, I mainly thought that diseases spread through miasmas: the destructive bureaucracy of the air. It was not until after the 1880s that he learned that microscopic organisms transmitted between humans, animals, and the environment can cause disease.
Thanks to this, sanitation has advanced in many parts of the world, separating rodents from humans and breaking the cycle of plague transmission. The invention of antibiotics, especially fluoroquinolones, beginning in the 1960s, further reduced plague cases, as proper treatment can now be given for all forms.
Today, we still see cases of plague in hotspots, mainly in Asia, Africa and South America. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Peru and Madagascar are the countries with the maximum cases.
Madagascar has dozens of cases per year, with major outbreaks in 2014 and 2017 (the latter recorded more than 2,000 cases). Dense forest spaces are home to many rodents, and contact between humans and these ecosystems is the cause of these frequent epidemics.
The plague will probably never be eradicated. Because of its complex transmission network of fleas, rodents, and humans, it is about to find, control, and treat all of those aspects. However, through correct animal management, separation of grass and human reservoirs, and effective activation and effectiveness. treatment, the number of plague cases is reduced every year, in the hope that the number of cases will be negligible in sight.
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