To most, the plague is an ancient nightmare, a scourge that wiped out tens of millions in medieval Europe and killed more than 20,000 people in colonial Hong Kong between 1894 and 1929.
A recent death at a plague research facility in Siberia is a stark reminder that the bacterium that causes it, Yersinia pestis, was never eradicated. While modern medicine has transformed the former “Black Death” into an easily treatable bacterial infection, the disease continues to circulate quietly across the globe, claiming lives whenever humans cross paths with infected wildlife.
Since the 1990s, most human cases have been reported in Africa, especially Congo and Madagascar, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
There are an average of about five human cases per year in the United States, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, mostly in rural areas of the American West.