A group of European researchers say that the Black Death, which exterminated up to half of the Europeans in the 14th century, came from what is today Kyrgyzstan.
16. June 2022 06:38
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The findings in the research article, which is published in the renowned journal Nature is contrary to other theories that the disease first originated in China.
The disease has caused more outbreaks than what claimed up to 75 million lives in Europe and Asia in the mid-14th century, primarily in the Middle East and North Africa. In Norway, it is estimated that as many as two thirds of the population died.
–The researchers took as their starting point the work of the historian Phil Slavin, who suggested that the Black Death could be linked to an unusual increase in deaths in a Central Asian village in 1338 and 1339, and examined DNA from remains there.
They found traces of the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes bubonic plague and pneumonic plague, in the remains of people buried under tombstones that referred to a plague on Lake Issyk-Kul, in what is today Kyrgyzstan. Black death is caused by this bacterium, which is usually transmitted from animals to humans via fleas.
– We found out that the ancient bacterial strains from Kyrgyzstan are exactly at the source of this mass spread event. In other words, we have found the origin of the Black Death, and we even know right now it arose: In 1338, says Maria Spyrou, the article’s lead author and researcher on medical history at the University of Thuringia in Germany.
Plague still exists today. Untreated, the risk of dying is around 50-60 percent, but you can be cured if you get antibiotics in time.
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