Plague (also known as the black death or moremus – Onet), which killed over 25 million Europeans in the Middle Ages, is now a rare disease. But not in Madagascar. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Pasteur Institute warn – if the island’s authorities fail to contain the spread of the disease, it could become epidemic proportions.
According to experts, prisoners in overcrowded and full of rats prisons are particularly at risk. Especially in October, when the humid and hot climate of Madagascar makes itself felt most. Under these conditions, the population of fleas rapidly increases – and it is they that transmit the plague (Yersinia pestis) between rats and humans.
Last year, 256 Madagascar people fell ill with the plague, 60 people died.
About 90 percent. all plague cases in the world are recorded in two countries: Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Still fatal infectious diseases
Symptoms of bubonic plague appear within two to seven days of being bitten by an infected flea. The disease begins with a fever (above 38 ° C), sweating, chills, vasodilation, headaches and weakness. Then there is a characteristic enlargement of the lymph nodes (even up to about 10 cm), especially the inguinal (less often the axillary, cervical) and symptoms of lymphangitis. Enlarged lymph nodes are painful and soft due to necrosis with the infarction mechanism and purulent lesions in its central parts. Their contents can be emptied by spontaneous fistulas.
In the septic form, apart from non-specific symptoms, there is increased bacteremia, bacterial microembolism in the end blood vessels of fingers, toes and nose (gangrene with black tissue).
In the pulmonary form, on the other hand, there is severe, exudative pneumonia with hemoptysis, dyspnoea and cyanosis. The prognosis is much more serious than in the bubonic form. The pulmonary form is extremely contagious by airborne droplets without fleas.
On the basis of BBC News