Body lice may be pretty good spreading bubonic plague

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Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.

ArticleBody:Blood-sucking, parasitic human body lice may be more effective at transmitting the bacterium that causes bubonic plague than scientists originally thought. A laboratory study published May 21 in the journal PLOS Biology found that lice may have spread Yersinia pestis efficiently and contributed to past pandemics the way that fleas do. Y. pestis has been the bacterium responsible for numerous pandemics, most notably the Black Death.

These feeders simulate warm human skin, so the scientists could study transmission potential in a laboratory setting. The body lice that became infected with Y. pestis and were capable of routinely transmitting it after they ate blood containing levels of the pathogen that are similar to those found in actual human plague cases. The team also found that Y. pestis can infect the lice’s Pawlowsky glands.

 

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