Plague, a zoonotic disease is an infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is a flea-transmitted disease with hundreds of cases occurring annually over much of the world. The genus Yersinia contain three species that are frequent pathogens of humans Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and Yersinia enterocolitis are enteropathogenic bacteria that cause a variety of self-limiting intestinal infections.
Yersinia pestis is the agent of plague, which is an acute, often fatal disease. Three major types of plague infections, bubonic, septicaemia, and pneumonic, are defined by the nature of the organs colonized by bacteria.
Bubonic plague is an infection of regional lymph nodes, septicemic plague is an infection of the blood stream, and pneumonic plague is an infection of the lungs.
Person to person transmission within ~2 m can take place by respiratory droplets through coughing. It is generally reported that high secondary transmission rates occur women there is poverty and overcrowding.
Plague is treatable disease and responds to antibiotics of diagnosed early. In the initial stages it may present as a non-specific, febrile illness, with symptoms of gastrointestinal or urinary tract infection. It can also present as meningitis.
Plague
