What type of victim is usually affected by Yersinia pestis?

What type of victim is usually affected by Yersinia pestis?

Plague is a disease that affects humans and other mammals. It is caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Humans usually get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague.

Who is most affected by Yersinia pestis?

Plague has occurred in people of all ages (infants up to age 96), though 50% of cases occur in people ages 12–45.

Who does Yersinia pestis target?

Y. pestis targets alveolar macrophages and neutrophils early during primary pneumonic plague. The ability of Y. pestis to create a localized protective environment in the lungs early during pneumonic plague suggests that it deactivates host innate immune responses [7].

What Animals Can Yersinia pestis infect?

Many types of animals, such as rock squirrels, wood rats, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks, mice, voles, and rabbits can be affected by plague. Wild carnivores can become infected by eating other infected animals.

How common is Yersinia pestis?

Worldwide, up to 3,000 cases of plague are reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) each year, mostly in Africa, Asia and South America.

Who was most vulnerable to the Black Death?

Despite the limitations of the available data, Russell concluded that age did have an effect on Black Death mortality; he argued that older men were particularly susceptible (although individuals over the age of 60 apparently fared better than those in their late 50s), and children between the ages of ten and fifteen …

Who discovered Yersinia pestis?

Swiss-born Alexandre Yersin joined the Institut Pasteur in 1885 aged just 22 and worked under Émile Roux. He discovered the plague bacillus in Hong Kong.

What animals were affected by the Black Death?

While rats and cats were blamed for the plague and killed in the Middle Ages, the disease mainly spread person to person via fleas and lice.

Can dogs get Yersinia pestis?

Infection in dogs is extremely rare. Yersinia pestis is maintained in the environment in a natural cycle between susceptible rodent species and their associated fleas. Commonly affected rodent species include ground squirrels and wood rats.

Where is Yersinia pestis most likely found?

The organism that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, lives in small rodents found most commonly in rural and semirural areas of Africa, Asia and the United States. The organism is transmitted to humans who are bitten by fleas that have fed on infected rodents or by humans handling infected animals.