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Flea-Borne Human Diseases

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Encyclopedia of Parasitology

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1. Black Death, Bubonic Disease

Name

Latin: pestis; Engl.: plague; French: peste, bubonic maladie; Span: la peste; German: Schwarzer Tod, Pestilenz; Portuguese: peste.

Epidemiology

Today, there are focally herds of plague bacteria in rodents on all continents, from where occasionally outbreaks among humans had taken their origin (Eskey and Haas 1940; Gage and Kosoy 2005; Hinnebusch 2005; Wilder et al. 2008).

Agent of Disease

Yersinia pestis is a 1–2 μm × 0.5 μm-sized, gram-negative, aerobe (facultatively anaerobe), flagella-less, rod-like bacterium which might also produce short chains and capsules, which may help to survive in dried blood and in flea feces. When coloring these rod-like bacteria, both of their poles are stained.

Hosts

In nature these bacteria propagate in rats and other rodents.

Symptoms of Disease

  1. (a)

    Bubonic plague: This form of disease occurs in 80–90 % of the infections and starts 2–7 days after an infection by a fleabite with a primary blister at the infection...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Zoomorphologie, Zellbiologie und Parasitologie Universitätsstraße 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Heinz Mehlhorn

Authors
  1. Heinz Mehlhorn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Heinz Mehlhorn .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Zoomorphology and Parasitology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Heinz Mehlhorn

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Mehlhorn, H. (2015). Flea-Borne Human Diseases. In: Mehlhorn, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parasitology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27769-6_3852-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27769-6_3852-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27769-6

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