linnugripiblog

Bird flu 'could be 21st-century Black Death'
Larry Elliott in Davos
Friday January 27, 2006
The Guardian link

Avian flu has the potential to develop into a global pandemic that would be as devastating as the Black Death of the 14th century, the World Economic Forum warned yesterday in its assessment of the risks threatening stability and prosperity.

In a worst-case outcome, experts charged with weighing up systemic dangers said there might be riots to gain access to supplies of vaccines, a collapse of public order, a partial flight from the cities and large-scale migration.

hm, huvitav, esimest korda vist kui ma näen võrdlust musta katkuga .. siiani on ikka võrreldud 1918.a. pandeemiaga
mustast katkust kirjutab wikipedia siin
soovitan lugeda, päris põnev :)
paar lõiku:

The Black Death was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe in the mid-14th century (1347–50), killing about a third of Europe's population, an estimated 34 million people. A series of contemporaneous plague epidemics also occurred across large portions of Asia and the Middle East, indicating that the European outbreak was actually part of a worldwide pandemic.

In addition to its drastic effect on Europe's population, the plague irrevocably changed Europe's social structure, was a disastrous blow to Europe's predominant religious institution, the Roman Catholic Church, resulted in widespread persecutions of minorities such as Jews and lepers, and created a general mood of morbidity that influenced people who were uncertain of their daily survival to live for the moment.

It is estimated that between one-third and one-half of the European population died from the outbreak between 1348 and 1350. As many as 25% of all villages were depopulated, mostly the smaller communities, as the few survivors fled to larger towns and cities. The Black Death hit the culture of towns and cities disproportionately hard. Some rural areas, for example, Eastern Poland and Lithuania, had such low populations and were so isolated that the plague made little progress. Larger cities were the worst off, as population densities and close living quarters made disease transmission easier.

kommentaar samale artiklile linnugripifoorumist:

There were two epidemics in 15th century Iceland that killed 50%+ of the population- neither of which could have been Bubonic Plague. There were no rats in Iceland!!!

Plague without rats: The case of fifteenth-century Iceland
Journal of Medieval History
Volume 22, Issue 3 , September 1996, Pages 263-284
Gunnar Karlsson*

University of Iceland, Faculty of Arts, Sudurgata, 101, Reykjavik, Iceland

Abstract
In the fifteenth century Iceland was ravaged by two epidemics which usually have been identified as plague. It is shown here that these epidemics were no less lethal than the Black Death in Europe. The first one probably killed half the population or more and persisted in the country for at least a year and a half. Since, for several reasons, it can safely be assumed that Iceland was not populated by rats at this time, this may offer the strongest available proof that an epidemic like the Black Death was not dependent on rats for its dissemination.

* GUNNAR KARLSSON is professor of history at the University of Iceland at Reykjavik. He has published on aspects of the history of Iceland in both the medieval and the modern periods.