Black plague could be the mother of pandemics

Between 1347 and 135, the Black Death or bubonic (infection transmitted by fleas ) spread rapidly throughout Europe, killing around 50 million people. A study published in the magazine Nature, suggests that the outbreak was the first pandemic of plague of history.

For the first time, an international team of scientists reconstructed, the genetic code of the bacterium (Yersinia pestis) what caused the Black Death and concluded that the pathogen is the ancestor of all pests modern

For this, the researchers extracted fragments of DNA of the bacteria present in the teeth of four corpses that were in the London cemetery of East Smithfield , which was created in the Middle Ages for the victims of the plague.

According to portal information BBC World, e l doctor Michael DeGroote , one of the authors of the study, explained: "With the best understanding of the evolution of this lethal pathogen , we are entering a new era in the investigation of infectious diseases ".

"The data genomic show that this strain or variant of the bacterium is the predecessor of all modern pests that we currently have in the world, "says the researcher.

Scientists claim that the direct descendants of the Yersinia pestis they are the ones that today continue to cause bubonic plague and killing about 2,000 people each year in the world.

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