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Why The Black Plague Isn't Over - Video học tiếng Anh
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Why The Black Plague Isn't Over
Why The Black Plague Isn't Over
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0:00
The black plague is one of the deadliest diseases humans have
0:03
ever faced; it killed as many as 50 million people
0:06
– including about a third of the population of Europe –
0:09
in the 14th century alone, in an outbreak known as the Black Death.
0:13
In modern days, though, you hardly ever hear about people getting the plague,
0:17
which might make you think we've wiped it out.
0:19
But the black plague is still around and still infecting people
0:23
– and we aren't even trying to eradicate it.
0:26
Hi, I’m Kate and this is MinuteEarth.
0:28
The black plague – technically known as the
0:30
“bubonic” plague – is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis.
0:35
This germ has a life cycle that normally goes back
0:37
and forth between fleas and rodents. But occasionally it jumps into humans.
0:41
And 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.
0:51
In 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;
1:01
this has happened again and again throughout history and around the world.
1:05
So 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.
1:10
It is true that, as we’ve distanced ourselves from rats and fleas and learned how to interrupt the
1:16
transmission of infectious diseases, we've stopped the plague from turning into a modern pandemic.
1:21
But Yersinia pestis hasn’t completely disappeared;
1:24
now, it’s just hiding out in populations of wild rodents.
1:27
Most of these critters don’t get super-sick from the plague,
1:30
so the disease just lurks in these so-called “reservoirs”
1:33
– and every once in a while, it infects an unlucky human.
1:37
These 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,
1:44
which is pretty much the benchmark for rare-ness.
1:47
Plus, a course of modern antibiotics can generally treat the infection.
1:51
So one reason we’re not trying to eliminate the plague is that it isn’t a big medical priority.
1:56
Another big reason is that completely eradicating this disease is simply too much trouble.
2:01
In fact, we’ve tried – and failed! About a hundred years ago, the Soviet Union funneled
2:06
poison into burrows all across the country in an effort to destroy rodents that might
2:10
be carrying the disease, and sprayed massive amounts of insecticides to kill infected fleas.
2:15
But they couldn’t kill off every single potential plague-infected critter,
2:19
and the rodents and fleas kept bouncing back, still carrying the plague.
2:24
Around the world, there are dozens of different
2:26
rodent species that serve as reservoirs for Yersinia pestis.
2:30
Killing them all off would be incredibly difficult,
2:32
if not impossible, not to mention a complete ecological nightmare.
2:37
That, combined with the fact that the plague isn’t much of a major medical issue anymore,
2:41
is why there are no large-scale modern efforts to eradicate the plague.
2:45
Ultimately, we haven't gotten rid of the plague because these days,
2:49
it doesn't plague us enough to bother.
