Face masks are placed on children in Antananarivo, Madagascar (AP Photo/Alexander JOE)
An expert is warning the plague that has sickened over 2000 people in Madagascar since August is impossible to eradicate. Even though the number of those infected has dropped in recent weeks, the plague will never truly be gone.
Since the airborne version of the plague can kill a person in just three hours, experts warn that its too soon to think that since there hasn’t been a person infected in recent days, that it won’t pop up again. That’s because the bacteria that causes plague is now so widespread in wildlife, that humans can’t do anything to get rid of it, said Dr. Allen Cheng, Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at Monash University in Melbourne.
“It’s not possible to eradicate plague, as it is widespread in wildlife rodents outside the sphere of human influence,” Cheng wrote on The Conversation. “Outbreaks, generally, are managed reactively by ‘firefighting teams’, deployed to clear houses of fleas, identify and treat cases and give pre-emptive treatment to contacts at risk. A more preventative approach, such as the identification of areas at risk using climate models and animal surveys to focus flea and rat control efforts, would be better,” he said. “But, this requires a better understanding of transmission pathways in each region where disease persists.”
The best way to stop the plague spreading was to focus on flea and rat control in the most at-risk areas, he said. Cheng’s comments came after at least 171 people died in Madagascar over an outbreak of plague. Nine countries were urged by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to prepare for a black death attack, at the end of October.
It’s been reported that plague has been transmitted to humans by camels, goats, prairie dogs, rock squirrels and guinea pigs since the 1960’s. There are only a few remaining hotspots for plague in the world – Madagascar being one of them. This outbreak was also highly “unusual”, in that several different parts of the island were affected, including areas with lots of people.
WHO has reported 2119 cases of the plague as of November 10. 171 have died of the disease so far.
Wait til some of this shit hits the shores of the U.S.
Want to make wagers on where it starts?
Minesota somali refugees
Plague update from the World Health Organization website…
Situation Report 12 – November 20, 2017
“WHO continues to support the Ministry of Public Health and other national authorities in Madagascar to monitor and respond to the outbreak of plague.
From 6 to 17 November 2017, 216 cases of plague (1 confirmed, 20 probable and 195 suspect) were reported to WHO. The date of onset of the last case of bubonic plague was 7 November 2017 and the last confirmed case of pneumonic plague was reported on 14 November 2017.
From 1 August to 17 November 2017, a cumulative total of 2,267 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of plague, including 195 deaths (case fatality rate 9%), have been reported from 55 of 114 (48%) districts in Madagascar.”
ht tp://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/259482/1/Ex-PlagueMadagascar20112017.pdf
Direct link…
Plague update from the World Health Organization website…
Situation Report 12 – November 20, 2017
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/259482/1/Ex-PlagueMadagascar20112017.pdf
“Black Plague”… Hehehe, stop teasing me.
Another Plague.
Hurricanes, Typhoons, earthquakes, Volcanoes and plagues.
Meteor showers, potential conflicts.
Cup filling up.
Good maybe it will do the job of needed culling. Ebola didn’t do it. Maybe this is the answer.
Should there not be some sort of special measures for populations, who, when advised on how to prevent transmision, do dumb things like dance with corpses and run away from needles? Like, gross ignorance and poor hygiene should not be met in the same way you deal with an educated and responsible population.
For sure refugees will bring this jig-a-boo-stew to the US on one of those secret nighttime flights run by Fed Ex, G4S etc.
Especially since some of these dirtballs have fleas! Think im full o shit? Have a friend in a Christian mission, is a doctor, he was working new arrivals of Somalis and said that the levels of louse on these people is frightening, not all but some are just covered with every imaginable type of crap you have nightmares about. His comment was that it doesnt seem to matter how long they are here, only a few clean up and move on
Yes there are “special measures”. They are bullets……
No, we’re not “eradicating” bacteria. Cases of plague happen every year right here in the USA and seasonally in places like Madagascar. No big deal really.
Also, had to lol at the idea of a plague “attack”!
The way I see it, if these reporters have the time to leisurely file a report about a plague that kills in just 3-hours, then there really isn’t anything to worry about.
If there was really a plague nobody would be left to talk about “the plague.” They would dead already. Fear mongering is more virulent than any plague is. Fear mongering is going to kill us sooner than some plague in Madagascar will.
I hope that I am wrong, but there it is.
As I stated in previous thread, if plague becomes “too lethal” and kills the host off in just three hours, then it paradoxically cannot spread as extensively as a strain that has an incubation period of a few days, which gives the infected human carrier time to escape and spread it further. A more lethal strain, therefore, is more likely to be self-limiting.
Lethal gene sequences on strands of DNA or RNA can be transferred to other types of bacteria through plasmids, so the lethal strain may remain embedded in other animal carriers, called reservoirs, for later reemergence.
But for now, I would be more concerned with strains that have perhaps less lethality in the short term and have the ability to spread and thus more difficult to quarantine.
I think you have gotten some wrong information somewhere!
This DOES have the 3 – 7 days days incubation period. The people are dieing 3 hours after getting flu-like symptoms. But during the 3 – 7 days they are spreading it to other people.
This is why I called for a 10 – 14 day quarentene on ANYONE wanting to leave the island (or any other country that has reported cases).
People need to recall Paul Ewald’s studies on cholera:
ht tp://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/05/16/8260178/index.htm . He found links between water purity/quality and how a disease will quickly evolve to not only preserve itself; but, to change its mode of attack subject to factors in the environment. In areas of poor sanitation and water purity, cholera in his studies will kill quickly. In the opposite zones it will cause diarrhea and not kill quickly in order to retain its ability to spread. This plague will exhibit the same type of survival characteristics.
Very good point! These disease outbreak panics are highly misleading. They instead ascribe the same conditions to the disease spread vectors around the world, when in fact each situation is sui generis.
A disease entering a modern, healthy society with a functioning government and hygiene and sanitation services and where education is widespread, has a very different profile than when it enters a crappy, third world cesspit where people do not wash their hands after a crap, stick their crap in a plastic bag and throw it into the street, drink and cook in dirty water, where they have ignorant and pathetic local customs that spread the disease, where the local men harbor beliefs such as with AIDS in Africa, that they can be cured by having sex with a virgin, underage girl.
We saw the same nonsense with the AIDS crisis. Nobody ever mentioned that gays were behaving in such an outrageous way, any disease would have spread like wildfire, from herpes to syphilis to the common cold. Sticking your unprotected penis in the anus of multiple men every day while taking all sorts of drugs that inhibit your immune system, is not going to end well. But when they protested and ‘acted up’ they never talked about that, and pretended that behavior was close to being normal, which it was not.
It is time to talk about disease honestly and yes, that means calling out bad behavior and cultures.
When the number hits 2,000,000, then let me know.
Until then blah blah blah
The growth curve has been exponential.
Worrying yourself silly about the plague will lower your immune system making you more susceptible to all kinds of sickness.
“…humans can’t do anything to get rid of it…”
Once humanitarian resources have been extended to their utmost capacity, Malthus gets rid of whichever social problem.
Very kindly people have said that it is wrong, to talk like an arch Nazi eugenicist. I can’t fault you for that.
But, if everyone was comfortable, out of pain, and accepted socially, population collapse happens spontaneously.