The plague is an old microbial foe that has haunted our cities and our ports for millennia, killing millions of people in waves of pandemics since antiquity. But Yersinia pestis no longer has the same presence, or stranglehold, in our society and seems negligible when we consider the current state of microbial affairs - increasing levels of antibiotic resistance and novel and emerging viral pathogens, just to name a couple of today's most pressing issues. Even its moniker, “the plague," has been appropriated for more contemporary microorganisms that appear to come from nowhere and quickly, fatally sweep through a population - SARS and HIV are prime examples of two new "plagues."
A female Xenopsylla cheopis flea, known as the “oriental rat flea,” one of the major vectors for transmission of the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague. Image: CDC/ World Health Organization. But the golden oldie is still ...
