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Popular Media Review - Outbreak of Bubonic plague in Madagascar

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Controlling the spread of Yersinia pestis by spraying antibiotics while cleaning a market in Madagascar (2) In august of this year, Madagascar faced and is continuing to face the worst outbreak of bubonic plague that it has seen in 50 years (1). According to Dr. Tim Jagatic, the outbreak began when a man who traveled to the highlands returned to the capital and then the coastal city Tamateve by bus. Dr. Jagatic states that the man's bubonic plague had progressed to pneumonic plague, which can spread through coughing and infect others with bubonic plague (1). The man was in close quarters with others on the bus ride, and entered a cities where he came into contact with many people, a combination almost guaranteed to spread disease. Since then the outbreak has spread to over 2,000 people, more than 4 times the number that have been infected in past years (2). According to the same article, health workers tracked down around 7,000 people, and in total, over 9,000 ended up taking ...
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Primary Source Article Review

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Example of a Bacterial Culture of Y. pestis (2) In the article "Detection of Yersinia pestis using real-time PCR in patients with suspected bubonic plague" Julia Riehm et al. investigate a tool to help identify bubonic plague extremely quickly. The idea is that because the plague is highly infectious and has the potential to be used as a biological weapon if made into an aerosol, it is a good idea to have a test that can identify affected individuals quickly. The standard method of detecting Y. pestis consists of culturing bacteria, which can take up to 5 days to reveal the diagnosis. Riehm et al. suggest real-time PCR as an alternative method which can achieve the same result in twenty minutes. They test their proposed method against cell culture and ICT methods.  Example of a Lateral Flow Dipstick assay (3) Riehm et al. tested their method in the field, investigating 149 patients in high risk areas who presented symptoms of bubonic plague. Samples were drawn f...
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Disease Transmission, Prevention, and Treatment

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Xenopsylla cheopis The bubonic plague is the most prevalent of three main types of plague caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis (1). The main host organisms for bubonic plague are rodents and lagomorphs including but not limited to rats, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and mice. The host animals are infected through flea bites, and when they in turn become septicemic, will spread the bacteria into any flea that comes into contact with them (2).  Plague Doctor wearing protective clothing with a beak containing herbs and perfumes that were thought to purify the air (3) Infected fleas can then go on to infect other members of the host species as well as organisms that are not the intended hosts. These hosts are referred to as incidental hosts, consisting of mammalian species including bobcats, mountain lions, humans, etc (2). While these species are not the intended hosts, they can still acquire the disease and have the potential to spread it to each other, potentially ...
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Disease History, Etiology, and Symptoms

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Bubonic plague has seen 3 major pandemics. The first instance is termed The Justinian Plague, beginning in the year 521 AD, and killing over twenty five million people around the Mediterranean basin over the course of two hundred years. The second iteration was the famous "Black Death", beginning in china in 1334 and spreading to Europe through trade routes. The disease was so contagious that over 60% of the European population was wiped out. The final pandemic was called the Modern Plague and claimed around 10 million lives. The plague began in China in the 1860's and was distributed to other parts of the world by rats which made their way from port to port on steamships. (3) A concise but comprehensive history of the plague and its major outbreaks is present in this video, which is a parody of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl".  Bubonic plague is one three types of plague caused by the same bacterium. Of the three, it is both the most infectious and ...
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