http://www.vice.com/read/the-black-plague-is-spreading-in-madagascar
The Black Plague Is Spreading in Madagascar
November 24, 2014
by Allie Conti
For years, Madagascar has been one of the world's last remaining hotspots for the plague, a.k.a. the Black Death, a once-global epidemic that's now in the domain of world history teachers rather than doctors. Although 1,000 people still contract it every year, it's not exactly popping up in New York City. Even in Madagascar the illness has been mostly isolated rural villages and relatively self-contained.
But now, according to the World Health Organization, two people in the country's capital have been infec?ted with the plague and one has died. It's a troubling situation, and one that was unfortunately predicted back in September when VICE Reports visited Madagascar to take a look at this very issue.
As part of a documentary released in September, correspondent Ben Shapiro helicoptered into a village about 1,000 kilometers north of the capital that was considered a hot zone.
Now that the disease has made it to a densely populated area, a major outbreak seems likely, inevitable. In Antananarivo, the capital, garbage is dumped in the streets and public restroom conditions are terrible. Black rats—the primary vector for the disease that killed about 100 million people in the 14th century—run freely between buildings.
The people there there told Shapiro that they were scared of an outbreak, and they should be: After a 2009 coup, international aid to the country has pretty much dried up.
"There is now a risk of a rapid spread of the disease due to the city's high population density and the weakness of the healthcare system," the WHO said in its report, while noting that a task force has been activated to manage the outbreak.
Without money from Western nations coming in, though, the country doesn't have much to work with, though the African Development Bank is allocating $200,000 to fight the plague. As Shapiro noted in his report, the conditions leading up to the outbreak mirror those that caused the Ebola virus to spread throughout West Africa.
"Belief in old practices, rampant misinformation, and apathetic, corrupt politicians have combined to make the current outbreak much more widespread than it should be," he said in the documentary. "For Madagascar, though, it's unclear how many more people will die of plague before things start to change."
http://www.ibtimes.com/bubonic-plague-us-disease-still-present-colorado-madagascar-1729792
Bubonic Plague In The US: Disease Still Present From Colorado To Madagascar
By Connor Adams Sheets@ConnorASheetsc.sheets@ibtimes.com on November 26 2014 12:14 PM
The bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, may conjure images of the rings around the rosie and millions of deaths across medieval Europe, but the disease continues to be a menace from Madagascar to China and even America. News that an ongoing outbreak of bubonic plague has killed 47 people in Africa has restored fears of the disease common in wild rodents in the Western United States.
Spread mainly by fleas on rodents and other animals, bubonic plague is a treatable disease that causes inflamed lymph nodes, gangrene, fever, skin color change, chills and other symptoms. It is treatable through the use of various antibiotics. A lymphatic infection, the bubonic plague famously causes acral necrosis in extremities, giving them a black color and causing severe complications. It swept darkly across Europe multiple times in the first two millenia AD, repeatedly wiping out large swaths of the global human population.
Every year, between 1,000 and 2,000 people worldwide report contracting bubonic plague, according to the World Health Organization, though that figure is probably far lower than the actual count, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates. Of that number, in recent decades approximately seven plague cases hit America each year, 80 percent of which were bubonic plague cases.
The plague has never been the scourge on American soil that it was for so many years in Europe and has been at times in Uganda, Madagascar and other African countries. The CDC reports that only 999 plague cases were confirmed in the U.S. from the time it first arrived here in 1999 through 2010.
Still, the plague crops up in its various forms in Western states from time to time, killing nine people since 1957 in Colorado -- which saw four life-threatening cases this summer, raising alarms about the disease, Bloomberg reported. Most cases of the disease in the U.S. are the result of handling or disposing of infected animals in labs, or coming into contact with them in the wild, the CDC said, adding that the last time the plague broke out in an American city was between 1924 and 1925 in Los Angeles.
Asia also sees cases of bubonic to this day, with 99 cases and six deaths in China, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Vietnam in 2002 alone, the WHO reported.
But the disease is much more prevalent in Africa. In 2002, it struck 1,822 people, killing 171 of them, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, according to the WHO. And it continues to kill Africans today.
Madagascar Prime Minister Kolo Roger said recently that the plague has become an epidemic in the African nation, spreading from rural areas to urban slums. "For each case, all the necessary measures have been taken to stop the spreading," he said, according to the German news outlet DE. "All cases, whether far away or in the capital of Antananarivo, are being dealt with seriously."
Bubonic plague? That's old news
Maria Evrenos
Wednesday 3 December 2014 06.57 EST
There are two forms of plague: the first is the common bubonic form which is transmitted from fleas to humans. In some cases, however, the human can also become a transmitter, and then the disease becomes the pneumonic plague, which can kill within 24 hours.
Roughly one case in 50 turns into pneumonic plague. The affected person then becomes a serious health risk in his environment and this is when in a densely-populated city, such as the poor districts or prisons of Madagascar, a plague may mean disaster.
Professor Rogier from the Pasteur Institute of Madagascar (IPM)describes such situations as the “nuclear blast” because the disease would then become extremely difficult to stop and contain. That is the major risk with bubonic plague, which is why the health ministry and other actors in Madagascar have put in place a contingency plan.
The plague spreads in Madagascar ever year and the Red Cross focuses closely on trying to prevent the plague within Madagascar’s prisons. Inmates are at particular risk due to a lack of water and overall sanitation in prisons; they share their cells with cockroaches, bugs and hundreds of rats. Prisons in Malagasy are tough and very overcrowded, so if one or two people become sick with the plague, it can rapidly become a catastrophe. Our aim is to ensure that we stick to zero cases.
This involves training the “rat brigades”; we teach them how to to prepare special boxes through which the rats pass so that their fur gets covered in insecticides that kill the fleas and their eggs. It is only after the rats have been used to spread the insecticides that they are captured and killed and the brigades check if any of them have been infected. Eleven prisons now have properly-trained rat brigades, and we just have to supply them with the necessary items.
In fact, this is the process that you are supposed to carry out everywhere – not just in prisons – if you want to reduce the risk of catching the plague. The difficulty is that the rats are everywhere in the capital. I live in Antananarivo, and just yesterday we saw rats running around our house. We were just saying, “Well, we need to do something about it in our own home!”.
But, as I said, this year is not particularly different to previous years; it’s just that people are now writing about it and linking it to Ebola. An outbreak of disease comes along and everybody freaks out a bit. It’s true that in the 14 and 15th centuries bubonic plague wiped out half of Europe. It still has not been eradicated completely from the world; around 20 countries are still affected.
The last case in the US was reported back in 2011. One person died, a scientist. He was tracking a wild animal, and for some reason he found a fox and he decided to carry this animal back home for an autopsy. Basically, the animal transmitted the plague and he died.
But in truth, the biggest problem here and around the world is ignorance. The biggest killer in this country, and in many places of the world, is really ignorance. Because with the plague, as long as you have access to medicine, to a diagnosis, information, to prevention techniques such as keeping your place clean of rats, there are many measures that can be aken. And even if you are sick, as long as you get to a doctor, get a diagnosis and the antibiotics, that’s it, you are okay.
It’s just that people don’t get the diagnosis, don’t get the antibiotics, and die. And this is the drama of this country. The plague should not kill anybody in Madagascar. The health ministry has a stock of antibiotics and the treatment of plague is free so there is no discrimination. It is ignorance that is killing people.
Christophe Vogt is with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and has been based in Madagascar since July 2012.
And Obama is doing nothing?!?
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/31/health/madagascar-plague/index.html
Experts raise alarm as plague kills dozens in Madagascar
By Faith Karimi and Emil Hellerud, CNN
Updated 9:15 AM ET, Sat January 31, 2015
(CNN)An outbreak of the plague has killed dozens in Madagascar, and experts fear those numbers could go up.
At least 119 cases were confirmed by late last year, including 40 deaths, the World Health Organization said in a statement.
And the disease is taking an alarming turn.
"The outbreak that started last November has some disturbing dimensions," the WHO said this week. "The fleas that transmit this ancient disease from rats to humans have developed resistance to the first-line insecticide."
