• Question: what are the effects of Ypestis ?????

    Asked by iknowwhatyouarethinking to Pamela, Johnson, Holly, Daz, Cat on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Ahhh, Yersina pestis. I used to love learning about this bug because it was so dramatic. Yersinia doesn’t do anything by halves!

      So people get infected by being bitten by a flea that has the bug living inside it. The fleas normally live on rodents but right now in the USA, there is a really bad outbreak in Prairie dogs.

      In humans it causes two types of disease:
      • Bubonic plague which occurs within a week of being bitten by an infected flea. Multiplication of the bacteria inside the body produces a big lump or bubo (hence the name). If not treated with the right drugs the body can get full of infection, something called bacteraemia which can kill.
      • The bug can also cause pneumonic plague. This, like you probably guessed is an infection of the lungs and is transmitted by aerosol droplets (like sneezes) from people living close being inhaled by another person. This type of infection is even nastier than the bubonic plague and kills quicker too!

      Do you know much about the big outbreak of Plague that happened in the 1300’s in Europe called the Black Death?

      Cat

    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think Cat has answered your question very well.
      I work with someone who did their PhD on Yersina Pestis (Plague!) so I aksed him if he could add anything, although he gave a very very long and complicated answer I thought I would add some interesting facts.
      The bacteria infects macrophage (a bit like the virus I work on) and it destroys them (just like the virus I work on). The macrophage is a cell in your body which normally detects invading things and fights them. Because the bacteria infects them and gets rid of them the body can not respond properly.
      Also the bacteria takes the iron from your body, you may have heard of aneamia this is when there is not enough iron in your body and you need to take supplements, well YPestis does this. Without iron you can’t make your blood properly and your blood can’t take the oxygen you need around your body! So it kind of suffocates from the inside out!
      Also the bacteria produces toxins which are pretty nasty.
      But you will be pleased to know that although there is still plague around (as cat said) they can treat it now and with some simple antibiotics these horrible effects can be reversed and people get better.
      Hope that adds to Cats answer
      Pam 🙂

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi iknowwhatyouarethinking

      Yersina pestis, very nasty! I think Cat and Pam answered this pretty excellent! I can tell you it was the basis of the plague or ‘black death’. It is said to have been one of the worst infections in human history, and the attack of this about 700 years ago was estimated to have been responsible for killing up to 60% of Europe’s total population!!!!!

      I think Cat and Pam answered your exact question better than I could, but I hope that is an interesting fact!

      Daz

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