Living in a pandemic is not new to us anymore. Over the past one and a half years, the world has seen the death of about 40 lakh people, and we do not know yet where this is going to stop. However, as absurd as it is, the coronavirus pandemic is not the deadliest pandemic in the world. That infamy goes to Plague, a bacteria-caused disease that brought the Black Death upon Africa, Asia and Europe. The pandemic killed about 7.5 to 20 crore people over a period of about seven years, nearly wiping 60% of the population of Europe. Plague is not a pandemic-causing disease anymore as we now have vaccines and treatments as well. Yet, scientists have not stopped looking for the earliest traces of the disease. Now, researchers have found traces of the earliest strain of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, in the remains, found in Latvia, of a hunter-gatherer that lived about 5000 years ago. Interestingly, scientists believe that the disease emerged even further back in time.

“What’s most astonishing is that we can push back the appearance of Y. pestis 2,000 years farther than previously published studies suggested,” said Ben Krause-Kyora, one of the authors of the study, in a statement by Cell press. The study was published in Cell Reports on June 29.

Scientists believe that the timeline suggested by the latest discovery is really close to when the bacteria originated. Their best guess is the bacteria emerged from its ancestor Yersinia pseudotuberculosis some 7000 years ago.

However, the oldest strain found by the scientists was probably less contagious and not as deadly as when it caused the Black Death pandemic. The found strain was lacking the gene that allowed fleas to be spreaders of the disease. Scientists found the bacteria in the bloodstream of the dead man indicating that probably it was the bacteria that killed him.

A Hunter-Gatherer 5,000 Years Ago Was First Human Affected With Black Plague

The coronavirus pandemic is not the deadliest pandemic in the world. That infamy goes to Plague, a bacteria-caused disease that brought the Black Death upon Africa, Asia and Europe. The pandemic killed about 7.5 to 20 crore people over a period of about seven years