Expert's verdict on bubonic plague hitting UK as American infected with disease
A professor has described the conditions required for the bubonic plague to hit the UK following a reports of a human case across the pond.Health officials have confirmed a case of bubonic plague in Colorado, which is part of the "Four Corners" region where Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico meet and where "most infections" occur in the US.Michael Marks, a professor of medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), explained that the first person to become infected with plague "usually gets it from a flea".
He said they then suffer from "fever illness" and "large swollen lymph nodes", which are known as "Buboes", and the patient develops septicaemic plague if it moves to the blood, but plague is "extremely unlikely" to impact the UK.Professor Marks told Express.co.uk: "People with plague are very sick.
They aren't getting on planes basically. So the way plague moves around the world isn't individuals with plague (unlike say COVID) but by infected animals (rodents).He added: "So essentially, human cases of plague elsewhere are considered extremely unlikely to result in introduction in the UK.
The risk to the UK is extremely low, close to zero, as evidenced by the fact that cases continue in the USA every year but we don't see cases reach the UK."Bubonic plague is commonly associated with The Black Death, a medieval pandemic that wiped out between 75 and 200 million people or up to 50 per cent of Europe.
United States
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Cases: 46 252 513
Deaths: 750 423
Recovered: 0
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India
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Cases: 34 321 025
Deaths: 459 652
Recovered: 0
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Brazil
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Cases: 21 835 785
Deaths: 608 235
Recovered: 0
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United Kingdom
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Cases: 9 215 683
Deaths: 141 607
Recovered: 0
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Russia
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Cases: 8 494 589
Deaths: 237 619
Recovered: 0
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