In September 1994, in response to a reported epidemic of plague in India, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) enhanced surveillance in the United States for imported pneumonic plague. Plague information materials were rapidly developed and distributed to U.S. public health officials by electronic mail, facsimile, and expedited publication. Information was also provided to medic...

BACKGROUND Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of China is known to be the plague endemic region where marmot (Marmota himalayana) is the primary host. Human plague cases are relatively low incidence but high mortality, which presents unique surveillance and public health challenges, because early detection through surveillance may not always be feasible and infrequent clinical cases may be misdiagnosed. ...

Domestic fleas were collected in 12 villages in the western Usambara Mountains in Tanzania. Of these, 7 are considered villages with high plague frequency, where human plague was recorded during at least 6 of the 17 plague seasons between 1986 and 2004. In the remaining 5 villages with low plague frequency, plague was either rare or unrecorded. Pulex irritans, known as the human flea, was the p...

1. Outbreak of pneumonic plague in village Hatkoti, District Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India, February 2002. New Delhi (India): Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; April 30, 2002. 2. Dennis DT, Gage KL, Gratz N, Poland JD, Tikhomirov E. Plague manual: epidemiology, distribution, surveillance and control. Geneva: World Health Organization; (WHO/CDS/CSR/...

BACKGROUND Plague is an epidemic-prone disease with a potential impact on public health, international trade, and tourism. It may emerge and re-emerge after decades of epidemiological silence. Today, in Latin America, human cases and foci are present in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru. AIMS The objective of this study is to identify where cases of human plague still persist in Latin Americ...

In 1996, five cases of human plague, of which two were fatal, were reported in the United States; both decedents had septicemic plague that was not diagnosed until after they died. This report summarizes the investigation of the two fatal cases and underscores the need for health-care providers in areas with endemic plague to maintain a high level of awareness about the risk for plague in their...

This article examines one of the long-term structural forces that contributed to the making of public health in Modern Japan. My overall argument is that the history of public health should be conceived as a total history, encompassing not just political, administrative, and scientific factors but also natural, social, and economic factors. Elsewhere I have discussed two of these factors in som...

Muslim Rebellion (1856-73) the movements of troops again disrupted the ecological equilibrium, and further plague epidemics ensued. The war also forced the opium traders to take an alternative trade route between Yunnan, which was a major Chinese opium growing area, and Lingnan. The ecological conditions of the new route were more favourable for the spread of plague. After 1860 plague gradually...

Yersinia pestis, the causative organism of the plague, has played an important role in shaping human history. Plague is an illness that may manifest in bubonic, pneumonic, or septicemic form. Natural outbreaks devastated entire populations in medieval times and an estimated 200 million humans were killed by plague throughout history. The organism can still be found today throughout the world, i...

An increasing trend in the frequency of human bubonic plague cases in the United States, the principal sources of human infection, and emerging control techniques are described. Development of an integrated control program involving public health education, citizen participation in plague surveillance, and insecticidal control of flea vectors in response to evidence of plague and potential huma...