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A New Mexico man has died of complications from the bubonic plague as state health officials scramble to assess the ongoing risk in the region. The unidentified Lincoln Country resident had been hospitalized recently with the bacterial affliction, although the details surrounding how he contracted it and how his health deteriorated remain unclear, the state Department of Health (NMDOH) announced Friday. Despite medics’ best efforts, the patient succumbed to his symptoms, marking New Mexico’s first recorded case of bubonic plague since 2021. This was also the state’s first BP-related fatality since 2020; the state recorded four cases of the disease...

Scientists may have uncovered what is the largest mass burial site in Europe. The site in Nuremberg, Germany, contains the bodies of at least 1,000 people who died of the bubonic plague, which killed up to 60 per cent of Europe's population. Described as a 'nationally significant' discovery, experts think the bodies were buried at the first half of 17th century following a ruthless wave of the disease. The bubonic plague is spread by the bite of a flea that's been infected with a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. Those afflicted died quickly and horribly following a bout of high fever,...

An Oregon resident has been infected with the state’s first case of bubonic plague since 2015, health officials said last week. The resident was likely infected with plague by their symptomatic pet cat, Deschutes County Health Services said in a news release on Wednesday. "All close contacts of the resident and their pet have been contacted and provided medication to prevent illness," Dr. Richard Fawcett, the Deschutes County health officer, said in the release without identifying the infected resident. Officials said there was little risk to the community since the case was identified and treated in the earlier stages of...

The bubonic plague killed so many people in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa that that natural selection event is still rippling through our genomes today. But the same genes that helped your ancestors survive the Black Death may be contributing to autoimmune disease today.Have an Autoimmune Disease? Blame the Black Death | 7:16SciShow | 7.77M subscribers | 572,860 views | November 7, 2023

There are few events in human history as ominous — both in name and impact — as the Black Death. The bubonic plague pandemic made its way across Eurasia and north Africa between 1346 and 1553. It's estimated to have killed up to 200 million people, or 60 per cent of the Earth's entire population at the time. Now, scientists believe they have pinpointed the origin of the Black Death to a region of present day Kyrgyzstan called Issyk-Kul, once a stopover on the Silk Road trade route in the 14th century. Its place of origin has been one of...

When the bubonic plague arrived in London in 1348, the disease devastated the city. So many people died, so quickly, that the city's cemeteries filled up. "So the king [Edward III], at the time, bought this piece of land and started digging it," says geneticist Luis Barreiro at the University of Chicago. This cemetery, called East Smithfield, became a mass grave, where more than 700 people were buried together. "There's basically layers and layers of bodies one on top of each other," he says. The city shut down the cemetery when the outbreak ended. In the end, this bubonic plague,...

It's a simple rule-of-thumb to follow when you have a rat problem, according to Corrigan, who has a Ph.D. in urban rats studies and advises cities, including the District. “The rats do not like to chew into bleach tasting anything,” he says. “If the outside of the can smells like bleach to that famous nose of theirs, they're like, 'Well, this ain't food.’”

...bubonic plague may have reached England before its first recorded case in the Mediterranean via a currently unknown route, possibly involving the Baltic and Scandinavia...The Justinianic Plague is the first known outbreak of bubonic plague in west Eurasian history and struck the Mediterranean world at a pivotal moment in its historical development, when the Emperor Justinian was trying to restore Roman imperial power.For decades, historians have argued about the lethality of the disease; its social and economic impact; and the routes by which it spread. In 2019-20, several studies, widely publicised in the media, argued that historians had massively exaggerated...

Surrounded by fires, parched by drought, and shut down by the pandemic – residents of California’s scenic South Lake Tahoe thought they’d endured everything. That was until this week, when the US Forest Service announced it was closing several popular sites after discovering bubonic plague in the chipmunk population. The federal agency announced this week that “based on positive plague tests” in the rodent population around hiking areas, it would close the well-trafficked Taylor Creek Visitor Center and nearby Kiva Beach through Friday. The closure includes some of the region’s most spectacular hiking spots, which meander through forested glades speckled...

An outbreak of bubonic plague has left victims vomiting blood as health authorities revel at least 11 people as young as 30 have died over two weeks with many vomiting blood At least 11 people have died in an outbreak of the Black Death in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reports say. People are being urged to wear masks and staying away from corpses amid the surge in the deadly disease which caused the most fatal pandemic in history. Near-daily deaths with at least 15 cases of the bubonic plague have been recorded in Ituri province's health department, the Express...

A bubonic plague outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen several dozen people succumb to the long-feared disease, which caused Europe’s Black Death pandemic in the 14th century. Multiple cases of the plague were identified in the Biringi area of Ituri Province in northeastern DR Congo between November 15 and December 13, Anne Laudisoit of New York-based NGO, Ecohealth Alliance, told AFP. At least 520 people have become ill and “more than 31” of them have died, Ituri Health Minister Patrick Karamura told the outlet. The vast majority of cases involved bubonic plague, with the exception of five...

While the COVID-19 pandemic has not ceased, the bubonic plague continues to rage in Inner Mongolia. Now a suspected case of bubonic plague has also been reported in Yunnan Province. The local area has activated a “level 4” alert for plague prevention, and has conducted massive testing on patients with fever.The Plague Prevention and Control Headquarters of Menghai county, Yunnan Province issued a notice on Sept. 25, reporting that mice with unknown causes of death were found in Bianyuan village of Xiding township, Menghai county. The mice were tested by the Provincial Endemic Disease Prevention and Control Center and the...

Who Is Saint Rocco? Saint Rocco was born of noble parentage about 1340 A.D. in Montpellier, France. At birth it was noted that he had a red cross-shaped birthmark on the left side of his chest. As a young child, San Rocco showed great devotion to God and the Blessed mother. At an early age, his parents died leaving him an orphan under the care of his uncle, the Duke of Montpellier. Soon after, San Rocco distributed his wealth among the poor and took a vow of poverty. San Rocco dressed in the clothes of a pilgrim and departed...

A 15-year-old boy has died from bubonic plague in western Mongolia, according to government health officials. The teenager caught the plague after hunting and eating marmot, according to Dorj Narangerel, spokesperson for Mongolia's Ministry of Health. He died on Sunday. Marmots are large ground squirrels, a type of rodent, that have historically been linked to plague outbreaks in the region. Tests confirmed the teenager had contracted bubonic plague and authorities imposed quarantine measures in the Tugrug district of Gobi-Altai province. Mongolia has recorded 692 cases of marmot plague from 1928 to 2018. Of those, 513 died of the disease, equivalent...

Colorado health officials announced a squirrel in the state tested positive for the bubonic plague. Health officials reported the squirrel was the first documented case of the disease in the Town of Morrison in Jefferson County. Bubonic plague is an infectious illness caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. Scientists said the disease spreads through bites of infected fleas and can affect not only humans but also household animals. The World Health Organization explained those suffering from the disease experience their lymph nodes getting inflamed. The painful swollen glands are, in some countries, called "bubo." While the disease is highly infectious,...

First coronavirus, then murder hornets, now bubonic plague?! Authorities in China have responded to one confirmed case of the black death and another suspected case. Both cases emerged in the semi-autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. According to Chinese Communist Party reports, a herdsman in Bayannur contracted bubonic plague and is in quarantine and in stable condition, the BBC reported. Officials also said they were investigating a second case.That case involves a 15-year-old patient who came down with a fever after close contact with a marmot hunted by a dog. #Mongolia discovered another suspected patient infected with the bubonic plague. The...

...Prof. Haak will also try to detect more plague DNA in hundreds of skeletons from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. So far, DNA evidence from a dozen skeletons points to little variability between the strains of Yersinia pestis in such remains, suggesting that the pestilence spread rapidly across the continent. The speed may owe to another human advance at this time -- the domestication of wild horses, which may literally have carried the disease into Europe. "We see the change from wild local horses to domesticated horses, which happened rapidly at the beginning of the Bronze Age," said...

Marcus Aurelius. Photo: © DEA Picture Library/Art Resource, NY. The year was 166 C.E., and the Roman Empire was at the zenith of its power. The triumphant Roman legions, under the command of Emperor Lucius Verrus, returned to Rome victorious after having defeated their Parthian enemies on the eastern border of the Roman Empire. As they marched west toward Rome, they carried with them more than the spoils of plundered Parthian temples; they also carried an epidemic that would ravage the Roman Empire over the course of the next two decades, an event that would inexorably alter the landscape of...

The Plague of Cyprian, named after the man who by AD 248 found himself Bishop of Carthage, struck in a period of history when basic facts are sometimes known barely or not at all. Yet the one fact that virtually all of our sources do agree upon is that a great pestilence defined the age between AD 249 and AD 262. Inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, and textual sources collectively insist on the high stakes of the pandemic. In a recent study, I was able to count at least seven eyewitnesses, and a further six independent lines of transmission, whose testimony...

As those who follow the gyrations of the stock market are well aware, human beings have a propensity for short-term thinking. They react on impulse to that which is recent; they magnify its significance; and they forget what previous generations learned through bitter experience.To this propensity, the study of history can be an antidote. But all too often historians ransack the past in support of current prejudice.For one who wishes to escape the prison of presentmindedness and gain perspective, there is no substitute for works written regarding circumstances similar to our own at a time our prejudices and predilections...