A plague on this country

ONE of India's most outstanding economic jewels has lost its glitter. All that Surat could do is wait weak-kneed and groggy for a Pied Piper to slough off its gigantic army of rats and bandicoots, which recently sent the world's most dreaded disease rustling insidiously through India.

Plague is spreading to new areas

plague cases are on the rise and are afflicting countries more frequently than before. A who report says there were around 1,900 cases worldwide in 2002, which increased to 2,100 cases in 2003. In India, 16 cases of pneumonic plague were identified in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, in 2002--after a gap of 20 years.

Remains of Venice plague

This is one of 1,500 skeletons of bubonic plague victims, whose mass grave was recently discovered on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, in Italy's Venetian Lagoon. When the disease struck Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries, anthropologists say, everyone sick or showing symptoms of plague were quarantined on the island until they recovered or died. Thousands of skeletons still remain buried beneath the island's meadows.

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disabling protein: Antibiotics can now treat pneumonic plague. The protein that causes the rapid spread of the ailment, has been identified. Disabling the protein, called plasminogen activator, can control the spread and give time to physicians to treat. The attack is significantly slowed down because it cannot use the key protein anymore. Statistics show that the disease killed a third of the population in Europe in the 1300s and about 12 million people in China in mid-1800s.

Global warming can even cause plague

global warming can lead to more cases of plague, warns a recent study. Warmer springs and more moist summers may create conditions for Yersina pestis -- the plague bacterium -- to proliferate in parts of Central Asia, it claims.

India develops PPR vaccine

scientists at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (ivri) in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, have developed the country's first vaccine against the notorious peste des petits ruminants (ppr) disease that afflicts sheep and goats. Also known as sheep and goat plague, ppr epidemics occur every year in India, causing an annual loss of about Rs 180 crore.

Bioterrorism? Child's play

At a recent meeting of the World Medical Association in usa, doctors warned that terrorists could very easily get hold of biological weapons. Donald Henderson, senior advisor on bioterrorism to the us government, said: "At the top of the list is smallpox, followed by anthrax, plague and botulinum toxin."

Rat chronicles

Most people go about their lives unaware of the world of rats and the ingenious ways of this common rodent. Not Ishwar Prakash, principal investigator, desert regional station, Zoological Survey of India, Jodhpur. Prakash is, in fact, one of the few rat experts in the country. Every detail he collected about the behaviour and ecology of rats through years of research is passionately recounted and recalled.

Deadly solutions

for the past several decades, a killer had been let loose in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. Perfidiously, ruthlessly it strangled its victims. None dared to charge him guilty. But now it has been caught red handed. For the first time, a report has nailed down exposure to pesticides as the cause behind farmers dying in the district.

Grim reminder

THE contagion appears to have been contained before it could assume epidemic proportions. But it has still claimed four lives.