The Microbial Anthropocene

Over the last decade or so, geologists and ecologists have begun to talk about planet earth entering a new geologic period called the Anthropocene, defined as the period when humans became the driving force of change on planet Earth. Debates continue on when the Anthropocene begins; sometime in the late 18th century when the industrial...

War as a Driver in Tuberculosis Evolution

by Michelle Ziegler Russia has been all over the news lately. Beyond our recent election, increased Russian activity on the world stage has public health consequences for Europe and farther afield. It has been known for a long time that post-Soviet Russia had and continues to have serious public health problems. One of their particular...

An Anniversary year for Natural Disasters: 1815, 1665, and 1315

There are major natural disasters every year. In the last year alone we have had the major earthquake in Nepal just in the last couple days and a historic epidemic of Ebola. It's too soon to tell how these latest disasters will seen by history and effect historical interpretations. This year there are three natural...

Plague in Surat: 20 Years Later

I can't let 2014 pass in a few weeks without mentioning that this fall was the twentieth anniversary of the plague outbreak in Surat, India -- a major turning point in modern plague history and in the development of the (re)emerging infectious disease paradigm. In the final accounting, 53 people died of the plague, mostly...

Expanding the Historical Plague Paradigm

When the first complete genomic sequence of Yersinia pestis was published on October 4, 2001 the world was naturally focused elsewhere, on anthrax bioterrorism -- the Amerithrax incident was then in its second week-- and the September 11 attacks were just over three weeks old. As the world redeveloped bioterrorism assessments and plans, plague was...

Biosecurity Failures Round-up

Like many of you, I've been watching and reading all the recent biosecurity lapses at our top labs with some dismay. This really isn't something I normally would cover here on Contagions, but a comment from a reader reminded me that not everyone gets all the stories I've been tweeting (or retweeting) for the last...

An Unnatural History of Emerging Infections

Ron Barrett and George Armelagos. An Unnatural History of Emerging Infections. Oxford University Press, 2013 (e-book) This is not a traditional review. In keeping with this blog's function as my shared file cabinet, this post will be something like a précis /notes with a few of  my comments in italics. Medical anthropologists Ron Barrett and George Aremelagos...

Microbial Forensics of a Natural Pneumonic Plague Outbreak

For bioterrorism agents like Yersinia pestis it is necessary to identify the strain and its source specifically enough for forensic use. Categorizing an epidemic isolate and tracing its source is always important for public health measures, but the level of precision is far higher for legal uses. Developing forensic techniques to characterize and parse very...