Why The Black Plague Isn't Over

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0:00The black plague is one of the deadliest diseases humans have

0:03ever faced; it killed as many as 50 million people

0:06– including about a third of the population of Europe –

0:09in the 14th century alone, in an outbreak known as the Black Death.

0:13In modern days, though, you hardly ever hear about people getting the plague,

0:17which might make you think we've wiped it out.

0:19But the black plague is still around and still infecting people

0:23– and we aren't even trying to eradicate it.

0:26Hi, I’m Kate and this is MinuteEarth.

0:28The black plague – technically known as the

0:30“bubonic” plague – is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis.

0:35This germ has a life cycle that normally goes back

0:37and forth between fleas and rodents. But occasionally it jumps into humans.

0:41And in humans, the disease is nasty; it fills a person’s lymph nodes with pus

0:46– sometimes to the point of bursting – and eventually shuts down their organs.

0:51In times and places where lots of humans lived alongside lots of rats and fleas

0:55– like areas of poverty in big, crowded cities – the plague could spread far and fast;

1:01this has happened again and again throughout history and around the world.

1:05So you’d think we’d be doing everything in our power to kill it off once and for all

1:09– but we aren’t.

1:10It is true that, as we’ve distanced ourselves from rats and fleas and learned how to interrupt the

1:16transmission of infectious diseases, we've stopped the plague from turning into a modern pandemic.

1:21But Yersinia pestis hasn’t completely disappeared;

1:24now, it’s just hiding out in populations of wild rodents.

1:27Most of these critters don’t get super-sick from the plague,

1:30so the disease just lurks in these so-called “reservoirs”

1:33– and every once in a while, it infects an unlucky human.

1:37These days, only about a thousand people worldwide get the plague each year

1:41– that’s about half as many as get struck by lightning,

1:44which is pretty much the benchmark for rare-ness.

1:47Plus, a course of modern antibiotics can generally treat the infection.

1:51So one reason we’re not trying to eliminate the plague is that it isn’t a big medical priority.

1:56Another big reason is that completely eradicating this disease is simply too much trouble.

2:01In fact, we’ve tried – and failed! About a hundred years ago, the Soviet Union funneled

2:06poison into burrows all across the country in an effort to destroy rodents that might

2:10be carrying the disease, and sprayed massive amounts of insecticides to kill infected fleas.

2:15But they couldn’t kill off every single potential plague-infected critter,

2:19and the rodents and fleas kept bouncing back, still carrying the plague.

2:24Around the world, there are dozens of different

2:26rodent species that serve as reservoirs for Yersinia pestis.

2:30Killing them all off would be incredibly difficult,

2:32if not impossible, not to mention a complete ecological nightmare.

2:37That, combined with the fact that the plague isn’t much of a major medical issue anymore,

2:41is why there are no large-scale modern efforts to eradicate the plague.

2:45Ultimately, we haven't gotten rid of the plague because these days,

2:49it doesn't plague us enough to bother.