Modeling the Justinianic Plague: Comparing hypothesized transmission routes

Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague

Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of the disease plague, has been implicated in three historical pandemics. These include the third pandemic of the 19(th) and 20(th) centuries, during which plague was spread around the world, and the second pandemic of the 14(th)-17(th) centuries, which included the infamous epidemic known as the Black Death. Previous studies have confirmed that Y. pestis ca...

A High-Coverage Yersinia pestis Genome from a Sixth-Century Justinianic Plague Victim

The Justinianic Plague, which started in the sixth century and lasted to the mid eighth century, is thought to be the first of three historically documented plague pandemics causing massive casualties. Historical accounts and molecular data suggest the bacterium Yersinia pestis as its etiological agent. Here we present a new high-coverage (17.9-fold) Y. pestis genome obtained from a sixth-centu...

Routes of HIV transmission?

I have a specific question about the HIV virus that a friend asked me; I want to make sure to give her the correct answer. She thinks that the virus can only be transmitted from bloodstream to bloodstream, that is, only infected blood in contact with another's blood can infect another person. I thought that the virus can also be absorbed through skin tissue ? body fluids can thus infect another...

Wet climate and transportation routes accelerate spread of human plague.

Currently, large-scale transmissions of infectious diseases are becoming more closely associated with accelerated globalization and climate change, but quantitative analyses are still rare. By using an extensive dataset consisting of date and location of cases for the third plague pandemic from 1772 to 1964 in China and a novel method (nearest neighbour approach) which deals with both short- an...

Modeling of the Plague Epizootic Process