Genetics of the<unk> <unk>  strain The<unk>  is generally regarded as the first historically recorded epidemic of Yersinia pestis. This conclusion is based on historical descriptions of the clinical manifestations of the disease and the detection of Y. pestis DNA from human remains at ancient grave sites dated to that period. Genetic studies of modern and ancient Yersinia pestis DNA suggest that the origin of the<unk> <unk>  was in Central Asia. The most basal or root level existing strains of the Yersinia pestis as a whole species are found in Qinghai, China. Other scholars contest that, rather than Central Asia, the specific strain that composed the<unk> <unk>  began in Subsaharan-Africa, and that the<unk>  was spread to the Mediterranean by merchants from the Kingdom of Aksum in East Africa. This point of origin aligns more with the general South-North spread of the disease from Egypt into the rest of the Mediterranean world. It also explains why Sassanid Persia saw a later development of the outbreak despite stronger trade links with Central Asia.After samples of DNA from Yersinia pestis were isolated from skeletons of<unk> <unk>  victims in Germany, it was found that modern strains currently found in the Tian Shan mountain range system are most basal known in comparison with the<unk> <unk>  strain. Additionally, a skeleton found in Tian Shan dating to around 180 AD and identified as an "early Hun" was found to contain DNA from Yersinia pestis closely related to the Tian Shan strain basal ancestor of the<unk> <unk>  strain German samples. This finding suggests that the expansion of nomadic peoples who moved across the Eurasian steppe, such as the Xiongnu and the later Huns, had a role in spreading<unk>  to West Eurasia from an origin in Central Asia. Earlier samples of Yersinia pestis DNA have been found in skeletons dating from 3000 to 800 BC, across West and East Eurasia. The strain of Yersinia pestis responsible for the Black Death, the devastating pandemic of bubonic<unk> , does not appear to be a direct descendant of the<unk> <unk>  strain. However, the spread of<unk> <unk>  may have caused the evolutionary radiation that gave rise to the currently extant 0ANT.1 clade of strains. Virulence and mortality rate The number of deaths is uncertain. Some modern scholars believe that the<unk>  killed up to 5,000 people per day in Constantinople at the peak of the pandemic. According to one view, the initial<unk>  ultimately killed perhaps 40% of the city's inhabitants and caused the deaths of up to a quarter of the human population of the Eastern Mediterranean. Frequent subsequent waves of the<unk>  continued to strike throughout the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries, with the disease becoming more localized and less virulent. A revisionist view expressed by scholars such as Lee Mordechai and Merle Eisenberg argues that the mortality of the<unk> <unk>  was far lower than previously believed. They say that the<unk>  might have caused high mortality in specific places, but it did not cause widespread demographic decline or decimate Mediterranean populations. According to them, any direct mid-to-long term effects of<unk>  were minor. However, their position has been the subject of a concerted critique by Peter Sarris in the journal Past and Present, where he challenges both their core methodology and their handling of the sources (P. Sarris ‘New Approaches to the<unk> ’, Past and Present advanced access 13 November 2021). Sarris also provides up-to-date discussion of the genetic evidence, including the suggestion that the<unk>  may have entered Western Eurasia via more than one route, with it possibly having struck England before Constantinople (based on the important discovery of<unk>  victims at an early Anglo-Saxon burial site at Edix Hill near Cambridge).
Plague of Justinian
Great Plague of London
North Asian tick typhus
Cholera belt
Polymeal
Flying squirrel typhus
Scabies
Visceral larva migrans