Читать книгу Modern Epidemics - Salvador Macip - Страница 29

On the list of history’s worst epidemics, plague has a prominent place. It’s caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that lives in rats, which have fleas, and is transmitted to humans by flea bites. It can cause inflammation of lymphatic nodules, forming the typical tumours called buboes (hence the name bubonic plague). Another type can also bring on a general infection and kill in a few hours. A third kind mainly affects the lungs and, left untreated, causes death in 100 per cent of cases. Nowadays, it’s not such a serious disease, as we have a vaccine and antibiotics that can eliminate the bacterium in most cases but, even so, we can’t claim that it’s been eradicated. At the beginning of this century, for example, more than 2,000 cases of plague were still being diagnosed worldwide, most of them in Africa.