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Plague (disease)

About: Plague (disease) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5024 publications have been published within this topic receiving 61824 citations. The topic is also known as: Yersinia pestis infectious disease & obsolete Yersinia pestis infectious disease.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The present understanding of the history, etiology, epidemiology, clinical aspects, and public health issues of plague is updated.
Abstract: Plague is a widespread zoonotic disease that is caused by Yersinia pestis and has had devastating effects on the human population throughout history. Disappearance of the disease is unlikely due to the wide range of mammalian hosts and their attendant fleas. The flea/rodent life cycle of Y. pestis, a gram-negative obligate pathogen, exposes it to very different environmental conditions and has resulted in some novel traits facilitating transmission and infection. Studies characterizing virulence determinants of Y. pestis have identified novel mechanisms for overcoming host defenses. Regulatory systems controlling the expression of some of these virulence factors have proven quite complex. These areas of research have provide new insights into the host-parasite relationship. This review will update our present understanding of the history, etiology, epidemiology, clinical aspects, and public health issues of plague.

1,717 citations

Book
01 Jan 1976
TL;DR: Professor McNeill, through an accumulation of evidence, demonstrates the central role of pestilence in human affairs and the extent to which it has changed the course of history.
Abstract: This book describes the dramatic impact of infectious diseases on the rise and fall of civilisations. Plague demoralized the Athenian army during the Peloponnesian war, and ravaged the Roman Empire. In the 16th century smallpox was the decisive agent that allowed Cortez with only 600 men to conquer the Aztec empire, whose subjects numbered millions. As recently as 1918-19 an epidemic of influenza claimed twenty-one million victims, and seemed to threaten civilization itself. Diseases such as syphilis, cholera, smallpox and malariahave been devastating to humanity for centuries. Now professor McNeill, through an accumulation of evidence, demonstrates the central role of pestilence in human affairs and the extent to which it has changed the course of history.

1,263 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Analysis of the population genetic structure of Y. pestis and the two other pathogenic Yersinia species shows consistent with previous inferences that Antiqua caused a plague pandemic in the sixth century, Medievalis caused the Black Death and subsequent epidemics during the second pandemic wave, and Orientalis cause the current Plague pandemic.
Abstract: Plague, one of the most devastating diseases of human history, is caused by Yersinia pestis. In this study, we analyzed the population genetic structure of Y. pestis and the two other pathogenic Yersinia species, Y. pseudotuberculosis and Y. enterocolitica. Fragments of five housekeeping genes and a gene involved in the synthesis of lipopolysaccharide were sequenced from 36 strains representing the global diversity of Y. pestis and from 12–13 strains from each of the other species. No sequence diversity was found in any Y. pestis gene, and these alleles were identical or nearly identical to alleles from Y. pseudotuberculosis. Thus, Y. pestis is a clone that evolved from Y. pseudotuberculosis 1,500–20,000 years ago, shortly before the first known pandemics of human plague. Three biovars (Antiqua, Medievalis, and Orientalis) have been distinguished by microbiologists within the Y. pestis clone. These biovars form distinct branches of a phylogenetic tree based on restriction fragment length polymorphisms of the locations of the IS100 insertion element. These data are consistent with previous inferences that Antiqua caused a plague pandemic in the sixth century, Medievalis caused the Black Death and subsequent epidemics during the second pandemic wave, and Orientalis caused the current plague pandemic.

1,016 citations

Book
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: A sequel to Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor" in the light of AIDS is presented in this article, where the author analyzes the way society has viewed AIDS, as divine retribution, plague or total war and dispels racist ideas that AIDS originates from deepest Africa.
Abstract: A sequel, or extended afterthought in the form of an essay, to Susan Sontag's book "Illness as Metaphor", in the light of AIDS. The author analyzes the way society has viewed AIDS, as divine retribution, plague or total war, and dispels racist ideas that AIDS originates from deepest Africa.

820 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The zoonotic nature of the disease and that plague exists in natural cycles involving transmission between rodent hosts and flea vectors are among the most important discoveries.
Abstract: For more than a century, scientists have investigated the natural history of plague, a highly fatal disease caused by infection with the gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pestis. Among their most important discoveries were the zoonotic nature of the disease and that plague exists in natural cycles involving transmission between rodent hosts and flea vectors. Other significant findings include those on the evolution of Y. pestis; geographic variation among plague strains; the dynamics and maintenance of transmission cycles; mechanisms by which fleas transmit Y. pestis; resistance and susceptibility among plague hosts; the structure and typology of natural foci; and how landscape features influence the focality, maintenance, and spread of the disease. The knowledge gained from these studies is essential for the development of effective prevention and control strategies.

611 citations


Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20242
2023283
2022786
2021189
2020206
2019121