Warming may revive plague

James Kilner
Oslo 

WARMER, WETTER weather brought on by global warming could increase outbreaks of the plague, which has killed millions down the ages and wiped out one third of Europe's population in the 14th century, academics said. 
Migratory birds spreading avian flu from Asia today could also carry the plague bacteria westward from their source in Central Asia, Nils Stenseth, head of a three-day conference on the plague and how it spreads, said on Monday. 

"Wetter, warmer weather conditions mean there are likely to be more of the bacteria around than normal and the chance of it spreading to humans is higher," he said. The European Unionfunded group has just finished analysing Soviet-era data from Kazakhstan which show a link between warmer weather and outbreaks of the plague. 

This analysis was important as it had not previously been clear whether warmer conditions encouraged the bacteria, fleas and rats to grow or killed them off, Stenseth said. Plague bacteria are often carried by fleas on rats. 

"But if it becomes too hot it would kill off the fleas and rodents," he said. 

Many scientists say a build-up of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels is pushing up temperatures around the world and changing Earth's climate. 

The plague -- caused by the virulent, aggressive and mutating Yersinia Pestis bacteria -periodically breaks out in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries and has been carried around the globe by fleas on the back of rats, birds and in clothing for centuries, Stenseth said. 

In the 14th century the plague killed around 34 million people and some academics believe it reappeared every generation, including the Great Plague of London in 1665-66. 

"The link is very important and it is also important to link it back to the Black Death in the 1300s because there were the kind of weather conditions then -- warmer and wetter -- that we predict for the future," Stenseth said.

*Source:www.hindustantimes.com,Mumbai Edition,Tuesday,November 15,2005.*