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Pandemic Tales— The Spread of the Black Death
By Nana Dadzie Ghansah
Necessary for the spread of any disease outbreak that turns into an epidemic or pandemic is the movement of humans and goods. The faster and farther humans and goods are moved, the wider the spread of the disease. Once upon a time, it involved caravans, then ships and now both ships and planes play that role.
Thus we see governments all over the world trying to control the spread of COVID-19 through lockdowns and social-distancing measures.
The role transportation plays in the spread is illustrated really well by the way the bubonic plague spread during the 14th century in the pandemic known as “Black Death”.
The bubonic plague was the cause of three of the biggest pandemics in history. The pathogen that causes that is the bacteria, Yersinia pestis. A bacteria that is enzootic to fleas and lice, it spreads to humans through black rats, often carried from port to port on ships. The fleas hop from rats to humans in unclean areas and dislodge the bacteria into humans through their bites.
Several recent papers have challenged the notion that rats were the main vectors for the fleas. Due to the lack of extensive rat fossils from that era, it is thought that the disease was mostly spread by humans infested with fleas and lice.
