Monday, March 4, 2002		The world of  dot.com

PLAGUE continues to haunt mankind. The disease has undoubtedly existed for ages and has played an important role in human history. Caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacteria that thrives on the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopsis), the epidemic started in 541 AD from Egypt. From 541 to 767 AD, plague spread from central Africa to Asia causing an estimated 40 million deaths. The bacteria goes into flea's gut when it drinks rat blood. Here the bacteria multiply and the flea gut gets heavily infested with Yersinia. When this flea bites human beings and regurgitates blood into open wound, human being is infected. From here on the disease can pass on to the next person through cough and sputum of the infected person.

The greatest recorded pandemic was the Black Death of Europe in 14th century that is said to have killed over 25 million persons. In India the pandemic was reported first in 1894 that caused enormous loss of life. It came back after 100 years in Surat claiming about 900 lives.

This time the reported plague cases are nearer home. In Chandigarh. The outbreak has caused panic and national concern. We are giving a list of Websites, which provides useful information about plague.

This is an official Website of World Health organisation. This site provides indispensable information about plague. This Website also provides World Health Organisation (WHO) report on plague. Some important telephone numbers and e-mail ids are also given on this site for any further information.

www.eeseehealth.com/reference/plague.htm 

Another site that provides information about plague. This site covers health topics like health resources, personal health, doctors and hospital, health news etc. It has also got some interesting packages like weight loss packages, stress relief packages and ayurvedic treatment packages.

The Centre for Disease Control(CDC) site has an excellent information on plague. This site provides vital information about plague. It includes symptoms, history, treatment, epidemiology, prevention and control, and scientific literature of plague. It also provides vaccine information. Most of the information presented on this site is available for download for public use. Besides plague this Website also provides information about other communicable diseases.

This Website includes description, forms, life cycle of the disease, and information about specific epidemics including Surat (1994). On this site, the life cycle of plague is illustrated with the help of graphics. Here you can get detailed information on insects and their impact. This site also provides information about other insect- vectored diseases.

This is another helpful Website that provides information on plague with the help of diagrams, including diagnosis, treatment, vaccine information and epidemic of plague occurred in "India". This site also provides pictures of endemic regions of the world.

— Vinod Kumar