Plague Pandemics Research Articles

COVID-19: The Ukrainian dimension (according to domestic and foreign media)

The article examines the activities of domestic and foreign media with the aim of establishing the causes, course and possible consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as identifying some features of the counteraction of coronavirus in Ukraine. As a result of the analysis of the content of media materials, special reports of the European External Action Service, it was found that with the appearance of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, misinformation, myths, rumors and unreliable information became widespread on television, on the Internet and social networks. This has a negative moral and psychological impact on the population of all countries of the world without exception, can have detrimental consequences for public safety, health care and effective social communication in times of crisis. It was found that despite the unprecedented attention of the intelligence services of the world's leading countries to the question of the origin of the coronavirus, the media are spreading different options, versions and approaches to this problem. Today there are several versions about the artificial or natural origin of COVID-19, various subjects are considered that could become a distributor of coronavirus. The foreign media, as the study shows, is quite active in the idea that the coronavirus pandemic has an artificial origin and is aimed at reducing the population of the globe is actively spreading, and those who remain should be taken under strict control. Some peculiarities of COVID-19 in Ukraine have been identified: counteraction to the coronavirus pandemic takes place in the conditions of destruction of the healthcare system, sharp confrontation between the former and current authorities, strengthening of external management in political, economic and social spheres, existence of a number of biological laboratories. US military, an increase in domestic violence. All these and some other problems that negatively affect the fight against this disease are solved during the war against the Russian Federation. It was found that many problems in the fight against the pandemic were laid in the process of becoming Ukraine as an independent state, especially by the previous government. This applies to medical reform, reduction of tuberculosis dispensaries, liquidation of the sanitary-epidemiological service, corruption at all levels of government, the formation of an atmosphere of spirituality and vandalism in the state. The media especially emphasize that after the outbreak of the coronavirus, the world has already begun to change, as it changed after the plague pandemics of the XIV—XV centuries, revolutions of the XVIII—XIX centuries, two world wars of the XX century and more. Experience shows that such global turns, together with numerous human sacrifices, negative economic and environmental consequences, brought with them the powerful development of humanity and the awakening of people's consciousness.

Modeling the Justinianic Plague: Comparing hypothesized transmission routes.

The Justinianic Plague, the first part of the earliest of the three plague pandemics, has minimal historical documentation. Based on the limited primary sources, historians have argued both for and against the "maximalist narrative" of plague, i.e. that the Justinianic Plague had universally devastating effects throughout the Mediterranean region during the sixth century CE. Using primary sources of one of the pandemic’s best documented outbreaks that took place in Constantinople during 542 CE, as well as modern findings on plague etiology and epidemiology, we developed a series of dynamic, compartmental models of disease to explore which, if any, transmission routes of plague are feasible. Using expected parameter values, we find that the bubonic and bubonic-pneumonic transmission routes exceed maximalist mortality estimates and are of shorter detectable duration than described by the primary sources. When accounting for parameter uncertainty, several of the bubonic plague model configurations yielded interquartile estimates consistent with the upper end of maximalist estimates of mortality; however, these models had shorter detectable outbreaks than suggested by the primary sources. The pneumonic transmission routes suggest that by itself, pneumonic plague would not cause significant mortality in the city. However, our global sensitivity analysis shows that predicted disease dynamics vary widely for all hypothesized transmission routes, suggesting that regardless of its effects in Constantinople, the Justinianic Plague would have likely had differential effects across urban areas around the Mediterranean. Our work highlights the uncertainty surrounding the details in the primary sources on the Justinianic Plague and calls into question the likelihood that the Justinianic Plague affected all localities in the same way.

Pandemics, regional outbreaks, and sudden-onset disasters

Pandemics of influenza, cholera, and plague are part of global history. Regional epidemics and pandemics of infectious diseases, primarily influenza A, continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality while remaining unpredictable in nature. Sudden-onset disasters such as earthquakes and floods occur with little warning. The consequences of climate change and environmental degradation can only be expected to increase the incidence of some infectious diseases and weather-related crises, adding to the unpredictability of such events. Health system leaders, both in public health and healthcare, need to understand the international context and how coordination and response across or within jurisdictions will improve the likelihood of successful management of challenges. Public health emergencies respect no borders or political structures. The ability of institutions to adapt quickly can make a difference in health outcomes and a community’s trust in those institutions.

Alexandre Yersin: Discoverer of the Plague Bacillus

Alexandre Yersin: Discoverer of the Plague Bacillus

Politics of Movement: Exploring Passage Points in Responses to COVID-19 and the Plague in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

Engaging the concepts of flow, circulation and blockage can help us to understand the trajectories of pandemics and the social responses to them. Central to the analysis is the concept of obligatory passage points through which networks must pass. Attempts by various actors to control the movement through them, be they government authorities, health experts and caregivers, economic producers or consumers, can create social tensions. Such tensions were duly recognised during the recurring outbreaks of the plague in the Second Plague Pandemic between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Analysing historical plague ordinances allows us to expose the power mechanisms impacting networks as they move through spaces, and to remain critical of how circulation is controlled and moralised. We argue that historians can contribute to reviewing these mechanisms behind the spread of epidemics and the responses to them from the perspective of movement and blockage.

Water, Air, Light: The Materialities of Plague Photography in Colonial Bombay, 1896–97

This essay examines the ways in which the third plague pandemic was documented and visualized in relation to rapidly evolving ideas about disease, medicine, and the environment by engaging with a set of photo albums produced in late nineteenth-century Bombay. As one of the first examples of epidemiological photography, a new genre of photography that had developed at the turn of the century in the wake of the bubonic plague epidemic, the photo albums serve as a significant archive of late nineteenth-century colonial epidemiological, visual, and urban practices. Through my analysis of the Bombay photographs, I aim to foreground the environmental and biological contexts of cultural practices, focusing on the multiple ways in which nonhuman materials such as water, air, light, and microorganisms can drive and effect image-making. I thus propose an epistemological shift in our reading of colonial photography that foregrounds the dynamic materiality of the natural world.

A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran's Age of Cholera by Amir A. Afkhami

Reviewed by: A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran's Age of Cholera by Amir A. Afkhami Robert Peckham Amir A. Afkhami. A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran's Age of Cholera. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. xiv + 276 pp. Ill. $54.95 (978-1-4214-2721-8). From 1817, a cholera epidemic that began in Bengal diffused across much of the Indian Subcontinent and along the proliferating pathways of global trade that had opened up in the wake of European—above all, British—imperial expansion. By 1820, cholera had reached China and a year later it was reported in the Middle East. Amir A. Afkhami's A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran's Age of Cholera examines the impact of cholera on the development of modern Iran. The book develops three interconnected arguments. First, in the spirit of Charles Rosenberg's classic study The Cholera Years, Afkhami suggests that Iran's epidemics provide a "sampling technique" to throw into relief entangled social, political, and economic processes.1 In his own words, cholera furnishes a "prism" for "showing the multiple, and often contradictory, social and political determinants of medicine and public health" (p. 3). Second, he contends that Iran's transition to modernity under the Qajar dynasty (1796–1925) created new conditions that in turn produced novel susceptibilities to disease. In particular, centralized government and the country's integration into burgeoning transnational trade networks facilitated cholera's spread and endemicity. Third, Afkhami tracks cholera's impact on the country's institutional developments across domains: from medicine, sanitation and hygiene, to social and political milieus. In other words, he claims that [End Page 143] cholera acted as a catalyst for institutional changes that looped back to influence how the disease was itself understood and experienced. There is an apparent tension, here, between the different roles assigned to cholera. If cholera is a "prism," can it simultaneously be a catalyst for transformation and an ontological object of study in its own right? The answer, as Rosenberg maintains, is yes, and Afkhami carefully braids these multiple cholera narratives into his singular but multi-layered history. While the comma-shaped cholera bacterium (Vibrio cholerae) that, when ingested, can cause fatal infection, is the subject of his book, cholera is also a methodological tool for making visible intermeshing social, political, and economic processes linked to modernity. Cholera, in other words, enables the historian to have her cake and eat it. The book, which draws impressively on a wide range of original sources, is organized chronologically, albeit with cross-cutting themes. Afkhami begins by mapping the institutional developments that marked the early period of Qajar rule as Iran opened up to international currents and modernized. He shows how these transformations were connected to a growing public health consciousness among the governing elites. Hygienic modernity was both reflective and constitutive of new social, political, and economic configurations. The cholera outbreaks of 1889 and 1892 serve as case studies for demonstrating how existing disease susceptibilities were amplified by Iran's progressive incorporation into a steam-driven international marketplace. Iranian responses to cholera, Afkhami concludes, were shaped by a wider geopolitics as imperial powers, notably Great Britain and Russia, jostled for spheres of influence across Asia. This power politics was played out, particularly at the turn of the-century during the Third Plague Pandemic, in the realms of sanitary imperialism. A recurrence of cholera in 1904 is used to illustrate the impact of new microbiological models of disease causation and transmission on Iranian society. Afkhami considers the espousal by local administrations and civic groups of Western-inspired sanitarian measures, highlighting the staunch opposition to them by a religious leadership. The failure of the Qajar administration to contain cholera led to increasingly strident calls by revolutionaries for government reform. At the same time, attempts to modernize Iran's health system by a constitutional government were overshadowed by imperial rivalries. The country's embroilment in a "Great Game" politics ultimately reduced its status, Afkhami argues, to that of a "proto-colony." A Modern Contagion provides a fresh perspective on cholera's entwined local and global histories, opening up new avenues for comparative...

THE OTTOMANS DURING THE GLOBAL CRISES OF CHOLERA AND PLAGUE: THE VIEW FROM IRAQ AND THE GULF

AbstractThe cholera and plague pandemics of the 19th and early 20h centuries shaped Ottoman state-building and expansionist efforts in Iraq and the Gulf in significant ways. For Ottoman officials, these pandemics brought attention to the possible role of Qajar and British subjects in spreading cholera and plague, as well as the relationship between Iraq's ecology and recurring outbreaks. These developments paved the way for the expansion of Ottoman health institutions, such as quarantines, and the emergence of new conceptions of public health in the region. Specifically, quarantines proved instrumental not only to the delineation of the Ottoman–Qajar border, but also to defining an emerging Ottoman role in shaping Gulf affairs. Moreover, the Ottomans’ use of quarantines and simultaneous efforts to develop sanitary policies informed by local ecological realities signal a localized and ad hoc approach to disease prevention that has been overlooked. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that environmental factors operating on global and regional scales were just as important as geopolitical factors in shaping Ottoman rule in Iraq and the Gulf during the late Ottoman period.

The Third Plague Pandemic in Europe.

Plague has a long history on the European continent, with evidence of the disease dating back to the Stone Age. Plague epidemics in Europe during the First and Second Pandemics, including the Black Death, are infamous for their widespread mortality and lasting social and economic impact. Yet, Europe still experienced plague outbreaks during the Third Pandemic, which began in China and spread globally at the end of the nineteenth century. The digitization of international records of notifiable diseases, including plague, has enabled us to retrace the introductions of the disease to Europe from the earliest reported cases in 1899, to its disappearance in the 1940s. Using supplemental literature, we summarize the potential sources of plague in Europe and the transmission of the disease, including the role of rats. Finally, we discuss the international efforts aimed at prevention and intervention measures, namely improved hygiene and sanitation, that ultimately led to the disappearance of plague in Europe.

Epidemiological characteristics of the Manchurian plague pandemic of 1910-1911

Objective To investigate the epidemiological characteristics of the Manchurian plague pandemic of 1910–1911 with descriptive epidemiological methods. Methods The epidemiological data were distracted from Report of Manchurian Plague, which is a summary of local official reports about plague in 1910–1911. The time distribution by day, and the space distribution by country was recorded, and also the source of infection. Results The pandemic of plague continued from October 25th, 1910 to April 18th, 1911. There were 46 747 dead cases on record in the three provinces of Manchuria. There were 24 867 dead cases and 7068 dead cases were reported, and the average mortality rates were 41.21 and 10.25 per ten thousands in Jilin and Liaoning province, respectively. In Heilongjiang province, 14 812 dead cases of plague were reported. The huge difference was found in different epidemic regions, the highest mortality rate was 4121 per ten thousands in Binjiang country of Jilin province. Patient zero of pneumonic plague had been infected in Russia and got sick and died in Manzhouli, a northern country in Heilongjiang province. Then the pneumonic plague was mainly spread through railway to other cities. Conclusion The epidemiological characteristics of the Manchurian plague pandemic of 1910–1911 were first described with modern epidemiological methods.

Methods for calculating credible intervals for ratios of beta distributions with application to relative risks of death during the second plague pandemic.

Employing historical records we are able to estimate the risk of premature death during the second plague pandemic, and identify the Black Death and pestis secunda epidemics. We show a novel method of calculating Bayesian credible intervals for a ratio of beta distributed random variables and use this to quantify uncertainty of relative risk estimates for these two epidemics which we consider in a 2 × 2 contingency table framework.

A single introduction of Yersinia pestis to Brazil during the 3rd plague pandemic.

Yersinia pestis was introduced to Brazil during the third plague pandemic and currently exists in several recognized foci. There is currently limited available phylogeographic data regarding Y. pestis in Brazil. We generated whole genome sequences for 411 Y. pestis strains from six Brazilian foci to investigate the phylogeography of Y. pestis in Brazil; these strains were isolated from 1966 to 1997. All 411 strains were assigned to a single monophyletic clade within the 1.ORI population, indicating a single Y. pestis introduction was responsible for the successful establishment of endemic foci in Brazil. There was a moderate level of genomic diversity but little population structure among the 411 Brazilian Y. pestis strains, consistent with a radial expansion wherein Y. pestis spread rapidly from the coast to the interior of Brazil and became ecologically established. Overall, there were no strong spatial or temporal patterns among the Brazilian strains. However, strains from the same focus tended to be more closely related and strains isolated from foci closer to the coast tended to fall in more basal positions in the whole genome phylogeny than strains from more interior foci. Overall, the patterns observed in Brazil are similar to other locations affected during the 3rd plague pandemic such as in North America and Madagascar.

1933년(年) 만주국(滿洲國) 페스트의 유행(流行)과 방역활동(防疫活動)

1933년(年) 만주국(滿洲國) 페스트의 유행(流行)과 방역활동(防疫活動)

Putting Africa on the Black Death map: Narratives from genetics and history

Did the Black Death, the famous, devastating plague pandemic that struck the Mediterranean and Western Europe in the mid-14th century and seeded new strains of the pathogen, Yersinia pestis, in new locales, also reach Sub-Saharan Africa? That it reached the Islamic North African littoral has never been in question: there is ample testimony from Arabic documentary sources for its devastating effects from Egypt to the Maghreb. But did it stop there? Archaeologists now have reason to believe that there was widespread abandonment of urban communities in West Africa in the 14th or 15th centuries. Focusing on the other side of the continent, the present essay argues that previously unutilized evidence—a “living archive” of genetic data combined with a new reading of linguistic and documentary evidence from the 14th through 20th centuries—suggests that plague did have a significant impact on pre-modern East Africa. The strains of Y. pestis currently found in East and Central Africa derive from one of the lineages involved in late medieval outbreaks in Central Eurasia. This post-Black Death strain, it is argued here, entered the continent most likely in the late 15th or early 16th century. This coincides with hitherto unexplained population migrations and other cultural signs of reactions to a deadly emerging disease. Although no aDNA (historical genetic material) for Y. pestis has yet been recovered from late medieval or early modern Africa, the present essay suggests that evidence for Y. pestis’s evolution and transcontinental movements, even those outside of Africa, can help archaeologists and historians draw Africa more centrally into the narratives of global history.

Emergence and Spread of Basal Lineages of Yersinia pestis during the Neolithic Decline

Between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, many Neolithic societies declined throughout western Eurasia due to a combination of factors that are still largely debated. Here, we report the discovery and genome reconstruction of Yersinia pestis, the etiological agent of plague, in Neolithic farmers in Sweden, pre-dating and basal to all modern and ancient known strains of this pathogen. We investigated the history of this strain by combining phylogenetic and molecular clock analyses of the bacterial genome, detailed archaeological information, and genomic analyses from infected individuals and hundreds of ancient human samples across Eurasia. These analyses revealed that multiple and independent lineages of Y. pestis branched and expanded across Eurasia during the Neolithic decline, spreading most likely through early trade networks rather than massive human migrations. Our results are consistent with the existence of a prehistoric plague pandemic that likely contributed to the decay of Neolithic populations in Europe.

Integrative approach using Yersinia pestis genomes to revisit the historical landscape of plague during the Medieval Period

Over the last few years, genomic studies on Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of all known plague epidemics, have considerably increased in numbers, spanning a period of about 5,000 y. Nonetheless, questions concerning historical reservoirs and routes of transmission remain open. Here, we present and describe five genomes from the second half of the 14th century and reconstruct the evolutionary history of Y. pestis by reanalyzing previously published genomes and by building a comprehensive phylogeny focused on strains attributed to the Second Plague Pandemic (14th to 18th century). Corroborated by historical and ecological evidence, the presented phylogeny, which includes our Y. pestis genomes, could support the hypothesis of an entry of plague into Western European ports through distinct waves of introduction during the Medieval Period, possibly by means of fur trade routes, as well as the recirculation of plague within the human population via trade routes and human movement.

Climate extremes and the Eastern Turkic Empire in Central Asia

This article analyzes the effect of climate extremes on the historical processes that took place (AD 536, 581, 601, 626, and 679) in the Eastern Turkic Empire (ETE) (AD 534–745) in Central Asia. Climate extremes are sharp, strong, and sometimes protracted periods of cooling and drought that are related to volcanic eruptions that result in negative effects on the economy of a nomadic society, thus bringing famine and disease. In fact, many of these natural catastrophes were accompanied by plague pandemics among the Eastern Turks and the Chinese living in the north. The Turkic Empire can be split into several chronological periods during which significant events that changed the course of history of the nomadic state took place: AD 534–545—the rise of the Turkic Empire; AD 581–583—the division of the Turkic Empire into the Western and the Eastern Empires; AD 601–603—the rise of Qimin Qaghan; AD 627–630—the Eastern Turks are conquered by the Tang Dynasty; AD 679–687—the second rise of the Eastern Turkic Empire. The research shows that there is a connection between important historical events and climate extremes in the history of the Turkic Empire. This relationship makes it possible to present the thesis that climate did have an impact on the historical processes in the east of Central Asia, especially on the territories with a nomadic economy.

Plague and trade in Lagos, 1924–1931

The literature on the Third Plague Pandemic in West Africa focuses on urbanisation and disease processes in colonial Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria. Consequently, there is a dearth of historical study of the relational complexities between public health interventions and maritime trade during the outbreak in the region. It is with this in mind that this article examines the historical effects of plague control on internal commerce and international maritime trade in Lagos from 1924 to 1931. The study is based on the historical analysis of colonial administrative, sanitary and medical records as well as newspaper reports. It concludes that the nature of colonial public health intervention was determined by economic policy preferences that impacted distinctively on internal commerce and international maritime trade in Lagos.

Disease Surveillance: Detecting and Tracking Outbreaks Using Statistics

Throughout history, the human race has periodically been ravaged by disease. One of the most-extreme examples is the bubonic plague or Black Death pandemic of the 14th century. Caused by the Yersin...

Three Genetically Different Lineages of Yersinia pestis subsp. Microtus bv. Caucasica (0.PE2) Strains Circulate among Common Voles in Natural Plague Foci in the Caucasus

Gram-negative bacteria Y. pestis subsp. pestis of 0.ANT-4.ANT, 1.ORI, and 2.MED SNP types are the cause of numerous epidemic outbreaks, epidemics, and three plague pandemics, claiming hundreds of millions of human lives. At the same time, strains of the microtus subspecies that belong to the 0.PE SNP type circulating in populations of different species of voles (Microtus spp.) are able to cause only extremely rare human infections that are not transmitted from person to person. It is suggested that the clinical form of the infection can develop only in individuals with impaired immune status. Strains of Y. pestis bv. caucasica (0.PE2), one of the most ancient phylogenetic groups of subsp. microtus, are isolated on the territory of the following natural foci: the Transcaucasian highland (including the Leninakan (4), Pre-Sevan (5), and Zanzegur- Karabakh (6)) mesofoci and the Dagestan-highland (39). In addition to the enumerated areas, similar strains of Y. pestis are isolated in the territories of the Pre-Araks focus (7) bordering the Transcaucasian highland one. Previously, we showed that passport data on the phenotypic differences of strains of the biovar caucasica, isolated from different foci, corresponded to their MLVA25, CRISPR, and DFR genotypes. In the present work, a comparative analysis of the clustering ability of MLVA25- and CRISPR-typing methods with the “gold standard” of phylogenetic studies—SNP typing—has been conducted on 21 strains of Y. pestis subsp. microtus bv. caucasica (0.PE2). The analysis of the obtained results confirms the existence of three clonal clusters of strains corresponding to the natural plague foci—39, 4, and the group of foci 5–7. Only the SNP-typing method made it possible to separate branch of focus 5 isolates from a group of strains isolated in foci 5–7. In addition, this method made it possible to reveal a greater genetic heterogeneity of strains from focus 39, in contrast to the strains of foci 4–7. When analyzing the genomes of Y. pestis strains isolated in the territory of focus 39, a deletion (~20 kb) was detected in the CRISPR region of the Ypb locus. The absence of this locus can serve as a marker for the determination of a given population of Y. pestis strains.