Plague, a disease from the the past called “Black Death“, could re-appear and threaten humankind once more! This claim has been made by the scientists from the Canadian Centre of the University in Hamilton. Meanwhile, experts in Bosnia and Herzegovina are seriously considering this possibility and have concluded that in the event of an epidemic their country would not be spared.
Canadian scientists have isolated traces from the teeth of victims old over a 1500 years and concluded:
bacteria that lives in the current population of rodents is similar to those considered responsible for the “black death”.
Basically it means that rodents could start a new cause of plague, in other words now is time to panic!
According to a report presented in the journal “The Lancet Infectious Diseases”, new analyzes show that different strains of bacteria caused the Justinian plague and the “black death”. Epidemiologists in Bosnia and Herzegovina point out that the transmission of this bacteria from rodents to humans can be done easily, and that “reservoirs” plague exist in many other parts of the world.
Dean of the Veterinary Medicine Faculty in Sarajevo Nihad Fejzic explained that there is a potential danger that, if there is an epidemic, a plague could spread to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In that case: “Bosnia and Herzegovina would share the fate of the whole world, because it would be a serious global threat. It is possible that the bacteria are transmitted, since 60 percent of infectious agents are the same in animals as in humans. It is a group of diseases that we call zoonosis,” Fejzic stated.
The expert argues that these bacteria, which are in many cases registered in wild populations, represent a serious threat, are being transmitted to humans. “What is important is that these are genetic changes, mutations… We had a few examples with other diseases such as various influenza, from swine flu which represented a constant threat to the people. This is a fact – a risk,” Fejzic warned.
Experts hope that the current antibiotics can, to some extent, prevent the scenario from the 14th century, when plague took the lives of 200 million people. Fortunately for us, scientists from Canada confirm that we now have antibiotics which can be used to effectively treat plague and that will reduce the prospects for possible large-scale pandemic.
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