Third plague pandemic

Third plague pandemic
Plague patient being injected by a doctor in 1897, British Raj India
DiseaseBubonic plague
LocationIndia, China, worldwide
Dates1855–1960 (105 years)
Deaths
10 million in India, 2 million in China, up to 3 million elsewhere

The third plague pandemic was a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in Yunnan, China, in 1855.[1] This episode of bubonic plague spread to all inhabited continents, and ultimately led to more than 12 million deaths in India and China[2] (and perhaps over 15 million worldwide[3]), and at least 10 million Indians were killed in British Raj India alone, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.[4][3][5] According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1960, when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year. Plague deaths have continued at a lower level for every year since.[6]

The name refers to the third of at least three known major plague pandemics.[7] The first began with the Plague of Justinian, which ravaged the Byzantine Empire and surrounding areas in 541 and 542; the pandemic persisted in successive waves until the middle of the 8th century. The second began with the Black Death, which killed at least one third of Europe's population in a series of expanding waves of infection from 1346 to 1353; this pandemic recurred regularly until the 19th century.[8]

Casualty patterns indicate that waves of this late-19th-century/early-20th-century pandemic may have come from two different sources. The first was primarily bubonic and was carried around the world through ocean-going trade, through transporting infected persons, rats, and cargoes harboring fleas. The second, more virulent strain, was primarily pneumonic in character with a strong person-to-person contagion. This strain was largely confined to Asia.[citation needed]

  1. ^ Cohn, Samuel K. (2003). The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe. A Hodder Arnold. p. 336. ISBN 0-340-70646-5.
  2. ^ "Plague deaths: Quarantine lifted after couple die of bubonic plague". BBC News. 2019-05-07. Retrieved 2021-08-28. In the 19th Century there was a plague outbreak in China and India, which killed more than 12 million.
  3. ^ a b Frith, John. "The History of Plague – Part 1. The Three Great Pandemics". Journal of Military and Veterans' Health. 20 (2). The third pandemic waxed and waned throughout the world for the next five decades and did not end until 1959, in that time plague had caused over 15 million deaths, the majority of which were in India.
  4. ^ Stenseth, Nils Chr (2008-08-08). "Plague Through History". Science. 321 (5890): 773–774. doi:10.1126/science.1161496. ISSN 0036-8075. S2CID 161336516.
  5. ^ Sanburn, Josh (2010-10-26). "Top 10 Terrible Epidemics: The Third Plague Pandemic". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  6. ^ Høiby, Niels (July 2021). "Pandemics: past, present, future: That is like choosing between cholera and plague". APMIS. 129 (7): 352–371. doi:10.1111/apm.13098. ISSN 1600-0463. PMC 7753327. PMID 33244837.
  7. ^ Stenseth, Nils Chr; Atshabar, Bakyt B; Begon, Mike; Belmain, Steven R; Bertherat, Eric; Carniel, Elisabeth; Gage, Kenneth L; Leirs, Herwig; Rahalison, Lila (January 2008). "Plague: Past, Present, and Future". PLOS Medicine. 5 (1): e3. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050003. ISSN 1549-1277. PMC 2194748. PMID 18198939.
  8. ^ Huremović, Damir (16 May 2019). "Brief History of Pandemics (Pandemics Throughout History)". Psychiatry of Pandemics. pp. 7–35. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15346-5_2. ISBN 978-3-030-15345-8. PMC 7123574.