{"id":6731,"date":"2024-06-04T20:53:54","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T01:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6731"},"modified":"2024-06-04T20:53:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T01:53:57","slug":"dont-just-blame-rat-fleas-lice-may-have-helped-spread-black-death-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/06\/04\/dont-just-blame-rat-fleas-lice-may-have-helped-spread-black-death-plague\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t just blame rat fleas. Lice may have helped spread &#8216;black death&#8217; plague"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/goats-and-soda\/2024\/05\/30\/g-s1-1808\/bubonic-plague-black-death-middle-ages-lice-rat-fleas\">NPR<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plague \u2014 which in the mid-14th century was also known as the Black Death \u2014 devastated swaths of Europe, killing millions in under a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the puzzles surrounding this ancient pandemic was how it spread so quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The common wisdom is that rat fleas were the big spreaders. But now a new paper is making a second parasite look like it may have helped play a role in plague transmission \u2014 the lowly human body louse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The disease is caused by a bacterium called\u00a0<em>Yersinia pestis<\/em>. Once the bacteria enters the skin, they travel to a nearby lymph node \u2014 in your armpit, groin or neck, say \u2014 and multiply. The lymph node swells and inflames, becoming what\u2019s called a bubo (hence the term \u201cbubonic plague\u201d). From there, the bacteria usually break out into the bloodstream where they cause severe infection. \u201cAnd that&#8217;s always life-threatening,\u201d says\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.niaid.nih.gov\/research\/hinnebusch-research-group\">Joe Hinnebusch<\/a>, a microbiologist now retired from the NIH\u2019s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Sometimes, \u201cplague can spread from the bloodstream and infect the lungs, causing pneumonia.\u201d This form develops rapidly and is usually fatal. It can also be transmitted between people when someone coughs or spews infected droplets.<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\" b OwccBruPZwcJt dW  u bQ \"><!--  b OwccBruPZwcJt dW  u bQ  --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NPR The plague \u2014 which in the mid-14th century was also known as the Black Death \u2014 devastated swaths of Europe, killing millions in under a decade. One of the puzzles surrounding this ancient pandemic was how it spread so quickly. The common wisdom is that rat fleas were the big spreaders. But now a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plague"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6732,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions\/6732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}