Plague

The Black Plague, caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria, remains one of the deadliest pandemics in human history

Surviving the Black Plague led to post-plague improvements in health and lifespan, thanks to a smaller population enjoying higher wages and better diets

China reports two cases of the bubonic plague recorded on August 7. The infected are a father and daughter, probably infected by another family member - the mother, Reuters reported.

Everyone who came into contact with them has been quarantined. They showed no symptoms of the disease, local authorities reported. The infected are from the Inner Mongolia region, bTV clarifies.

The plague has ravaged humanity for thousands of years, wiping out as much as half of Europe's population in the Black Death, and scientists have long puzzled over its origins and evolutionary history.

Nobel prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk has published his latest book, "Veba Geceleri" (Nights of Plague), in a timely arrival when the world can resonate with a plague outbreak on a fictional Ottoman island as it scrambles to end the unprecedented plague of the 21st century: The COVID-19 pandemic.

Myrtis, the celebrated reconstruction of a 5th century BC young Athenian girl whose remains were unearthed during excavations back in the 1990s, stars in a new animated video designed to increase awareness about the coronavirus pandemic.

An international team of researchers headed by Germany's Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, with Greek archaeogenticist Maria A. Spyrou, has decoded two 3,800-year-old genomes that suggest a Bronze Age origin for bubonic plague.

Pneumonic plague continues to decline in Madagascar, according to the World Health Organization, whose latest figures put the number of suspected cases at 1,947, including 143 deaths.

The latest reported cases of pneumonic plague, based on the number of people hospitalized and on district reporting in Madagascar, is good news, said Fadela Chaib, WHO spokeswoman.

The dire situation with regard to the illegal landfills scattered around the country, and the subsequent fines imposed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), are just a reflection of the chronic ills that plague Greece. 

The authorities of Madagascar urged citizens to give up the ritual of Famadihana, which is a dance of the dead, because of the plague epidemic.