Lessons from the Black Death

I have always believed that there are many lessons to be learned from the Black Death because of its epic spread and magnitude of the death rate. Estimates that 1/4 to 1/3  of the entire world's population died from the plague, presents a unique case study and one that should not be dismissed as mere history that cannot repeat itself. But the 1348-51 Black Death is not the only outbreak of plague, although it is certainly the most notorious.

A couple of epidemiologists at Imperial College in London have made a new finding based on the voluntary isolation of  the "plague village" during the plague outbreak of 1665-66 in the UK. Due to the voluntary "quarantine" of the village, the transmission of plague is evaluated from one point of transmission -- some plague-carrying-flea-invested cloth received from London. The researchers determined that 75% of the transmission came from human-to-human infections, and only 25% from flea/rodent infections. This is also consistent with the finding that the wealthy were less likely to be infected with the plague, probably due to their lower probability of coming into contact with rodents and village folk.

This finding could be very helpful in assessing effectiveness of countermeasures in future outbreaks in this millenia.

The article and link to the scientific publication can be found here.