Rising Temperatures Aid The Plague's Comeback

by Mike Smith · 2009-10-20 13:22:00 UTC
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Is the plague making a comeback? Well it never went away, and unless we kill all rodents, it won't ever disappear completely. Drug resistant strains in Madagascar have scientists worried. Globalization, urbanization, and even climate change is helping the plague return. Scientists explained to Foreign Policy that "every 1 degree Celsius increase in the spring temperature, there's a whopping 60 percent increase in the incidence of plague among the gerbils that play host to Y. pestis." And let's not even go into the plague being spread by bioterrorism.

Every year about fifteen people in the U.S. contract the plague from the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis. Around the world, the number is around 2,000, killing 200. It's so dangerous that here on the Global Health blog earlier this year it beat Malaria in the Tournament of Pandemics, eventually losing out to Tuberculosis (which went on to win our morbid tournament, taking the crown of the most dangerous pandemic).

The take-away message is that a plague pandemic could get very bad, and you've got to take seriously a disease that once killed of a third of Europe's population. The good news is that face masks help slow the spread of plague, and drugs work to significantly reduce mortality. The potential recurrence of the plague is yet another reason to pass climate change legislation. How many reasons is that? I've got 290 so far.

Photo credit: Otisarchives2

Mike Smith
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