Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Health & Fitness
  3. News

Is your city at risk for the plague? This map will tell you

By

plague probability map fever sick
Image used with permission by copyright holder
We may not live in the time of Romeo and Juliet anymore, but “a plague on both your houses” still stands as a threat. That’s right — the bubonic plague is still around and claiming lives. But happily, scientists at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have developed a predictive map with the purpose of identifying areas of the United States that are most at risk for plague cases.

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 10.28.26 PM
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This will come as a great relief to areas in the American West, which still plays host to “one of the largest concentrations of plague-carrying animals in the modern world.” Across North America, the bacteria that causes the plague, Yersinia pestis, has been a mainstay in the since the beginning of the 20th century, and while there aren’t a great number of reported human cases of the devastating disease in the continent, the possibility remains imminent. But thanks to this new probability map, researchers hope that they can prevent a tragic repeat of medical history.

As per the map’s data, inhabitants of northeastern and southwestern California, central Colorado, and north central New Mexico should be on the lookout in the near future for the plague, whose symptoms include buboes (after which it’s named) that ooze pus and bleed. CDC data suggests that seven human plague cases are reported on average every year, and can affect individuals of all ages.

Related

“This study used surveillance data of plague in wild and domestic animals in the American West to identify and map those areas with the greatest potential for human exposure to this infection, which can be particularly deadly when transmitted to humans,” said Michael Walsh, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate.

Relate

“The findings can be used by public health agencies to target specific areas for enhanced plague surveillance within areas and counties predicted to be at high risk, as well as by other research teams to direct the sampling of local wildlife populations for the identification of Yersinia pestis in wild animals that find themselves in close proximity to humans and human developed landscapes,” he continued.

Of course, this technology would be most useful in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which reported a shocking 10,000 cases between 2000 to 2009.

So hopefully, the next step for SUNY researchers will be to create similar maps in countries with a greater risk of the disease.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Lulu Chang
Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
MIT says it can tell how healthy you are by analyzing your dishwasher
silverware handles up or down dishwasher utensils mem2

The idea that your everyday, at-home appliances might be quietly monitoring your health sounds, in some regards, like a scenario straight out of Black Mirror. According to MIT, it could also be a game-changer for the likes of elderly people living alone, whose everyday interactions with appliances like their dishwasher, microwave, stove, or hairdryer could pick up on valuable data points that could be used to spot early changes in health that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The “Sapple” system, developed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), analyzes in-home usage of appliances using radio signals and a smart electricity meter.

Read more
Facebook map shows you where people are reporting coronavirus symptoms
Facebook has an interactive map tracking people who say they are exhibiting coronavirus symptoms across the U.S.

Facebook has posted an interactive map that tracks where people are self-reporting symptoms of coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, by county.

The map pulls data from a survey of Facebook users who self-reported symptoms to researchers from Carnegie Mellon University. Scientists say the information could be used to predict where coronavirus outbreaks will hit next.
What is the purpose of the map?
The map could help give public health officials and governments a clearer picture of the spread of the disease and might aid them in trying to decide when and how to reopen the communities.

Read more
This creepy quiz tells you which government agencies may have a photo of your face
boss sensor digital face recognition

To show just how invasive facial recognition can be, a new quiz created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) claims to show you which government agencies might have a photo of your face. 

EFF’s online quiz is meant to shine the light on the privacy issues related to facial recognition. The digital privacy nonprofit said it’s nearly impossible to know which agencies are sharing which photos, and with whom. 

Read more