Financial Times: Medieval diseases are making a grim comeback
“…While the plague seems to us a medieval affliction, it has never fully disappeared. … Now the World Health Organization has noted an unusually large outbreak of plague in Madagascar. … It is no coincidence the disease has found fertile pickings in a troubled part of the country characterized by the lack of clean water, electricity, nutrition, and basic health provision. History shows that natural disaster, poverty, and war, along with the absence or destruction of protective infrastructure, threaten our ability to keep pathogens at bay. The world bears this out today: war-torn Yemen is in the grip of the worst cholera epidemic of modern times. … Unvaccinated children, particularly in conflict zones and impoverished regions, are succumbing to conquerable diseases such as polio and rubella. The haunting truth is that future generations are still being struck down by diseases of the past” (10/18).
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