How did the plague stop?
“People had no real understanding of how to fight it other than trying to avoid sick people,” says Thomas Mockaitis, a history professor at DePaul University. “As to how the plague ended, the best guess is that the majority of people in a pandemic somehow survive, and those who survive have immunity.”
The disappearance of plague from London has been attributed to the Great Fire of London in September 1666, but it also subsided in other cities without such cause. The decline has also been ascribed to quarantine, but effective quarantine was actually not established until 1720.
Humans usually get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague. Plague is infamous for killing millions of people in Europe during the Middle Ages. Today, modern antibiotics are effective in treating plague.
Western and Middle Eastern traders found it difficult to trade on the Silk Road by 1325 and impossible by 1340, making spread of the plague less likely. Others still favor an origin in China or even Kurdistan, and not Central Asia.
Plague is one of the world's most lethal human diseases caused by Yersinia pestis, a Gram-negative bacterium. Despite overwhelming studies for many years worldwide, there is no safe and effective vaccine against this fatal disease.
As a result of the Black Plague, new sanitary systems were created by public officials, including isolation hospitals and disinfection procedures. Sanitation improvements also included the development of clean water supplies, garbage and sewage disposal, and food inspection.
Because most people who got the plague died, and many often had blackened tissue due to gangrene, bubonic plague was called the Black Death. A cure for bubonic plague wasn't available.
It can successfully be treated with antibiotics, and according to the CDC , treatment has lowered mortality rates to approximately 11 percent. The antibiotics work best if given within 24 hours of the first symptoms. In severe cases, patients can be given oxygen, intravenous fluids, and breathing support.
Plague cases continued to occur sporadically at a modest rate until mid-1666. That September, the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the City of London, and some people believed that the fire put an end to the epidemic. It is now thought that the plague had largely subsided before the fire took place.
The plague arrived in western Europe in 1347 and in England in 1348. It faded away in the early 1350s.
Why does the plague not spread anymore?
“There is transmission of plague among wild rodents only in certain areas of the U.S., and these areas are generally very sparsely populated so there is not much opportunity for humans to come into contact with fleas or animals carrying the plague,” Kappagoda said.