THE HOT ZONE
Black Death Returns to Madagascar
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Infographic: A Recent History of the Plague.
Click to enlargeBefore my trip to Madagascar, I assumed the bare and chilling facts of the disease would allow the story to write itself. When I spoke with friends and colleagues about the story, I would get one of two contradictory responses-confusion as to what the big deal was (it only kills a few thousand people a year. How bad is it, really?) and shock that it is still around at all.In Madagascar's cities, everyone knows about the plague. They know it constantly threatens to disrupt the social order of the country's towns and villages. They know it just takes a perfect storm of filth, fleas, garbage, rats, and diminished immune systems to set off an epidemic that could potentially make it off the island and spread to the African coast.As history has taught us, by the time there are enough people with the plague to classify it as an "outbreak," it's already too late. Something about Madagascar has made it the most vulnerable country on the planet for a serious outbreak at this moment. I wanted to know what that something was.Rasoa Marozafy and his wife, Veloraza, who both contracted plague in the fall of 2013. Photo by the author
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