In the past, (before the 14th Century Plague) the difficulties of travel greatly limited the number of people that could be infected by plague carriers.  Reaching the next settlement might be all an infected creature could handle before yielding to the disease.  Modern high-speed travel, however, can allow plague carriers to share their disease with every major center of population on Earth within a few days, perhaps even before they begin showing signs of infection themselves.  Plague currently exists in much of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, China, Southeast Asia (in small localized populations,) Africa, the western half of the United States and Canada, and in South America in the Andes Mountains and Northeastern Brazil.  Worldwide there are around one to two thousand cases of plague reported each year with a fatality rate of five to fifteen percent.
 Plague can also have a devastating effect on animal populations.  Domesticated cats and dogs, along with wolves have been known to dig dead bodies out of the ground during plague epidemics.  At times they have also been recorded attacking the living.  Many animals have died from either contracting the plague themselves (by being bitten by the fleas) or from a lack of care due to the effects of the disease on their caretakers in the human population.  Plague does kill the rats, squirrels, and other animals that are carriers of the disease as well.

Europe    The Middle East     China and Central Asia       Epidemiology
Pre/Post 14th Century Plagues  Bibliography      Links      About Us   Home