Deadly waves: Researchers document evolution of plague over hundreds of years in medieval Denmark

Science Daily  February 24, 2023 The historical epidemiology of plague is controversial due to the scarcity and ambiguity of available data. By phylogenetic analysis an international team of researchers (Canada, Denmark, USA – Indiana University, Rutgers, University of South Carolina, Australia) has revealed that the Danish Y. pestis sequences were interspersed with those from other European countries, rather than forming a single cluster, indicative of the generation, spread, and replacement of bacterial variants through communities rather than their long-term local persistence. These results provide an epidemiological link between Y. pestis and the unknown pestilence that afflicted medieval and early modern […]

Measles and the canonical path to elimination

Science Magazine  May 10, 2019 All World Health Organization regions have set measles elimination goals. A team of researchers in the US (Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, NIH) found that as countries progress toward these goals, they undergo predictable changes in the size and frequency of measles outbreaks. A country’s position on this “canonical path” is driven by both measles control activities and demographic factors, which combine to change the effective size of the measles-susceptible population, thereby driving the country through theoretically established dynamic regimes. The position on the path to elimination provides critical information for guiding vaccination efforts. […]