The American Heritage Dictionary “plagues”

1. A highly infectious, usually fatal, epidemic disease; a pestilence.
2. A virulent, infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (syn. Pasteurella pestis) and is transmitted primarily by the bite of fleas from an infected rodent, especially a rat. In humans it occurs in bubonic form, marked by lymph node enlargement, and in pneumonic form, marked by infection of the lungs, and can progress to septicemia.
3. A widespread affliction or calamity seen as divine retribution.

Important Takeaways:

• ‘Disease X’: UK scientists begin developing vaccines against new pandemic
• UK scientists have begun developing vaccines as an insurance against a new pandemic caused by an unknown “Disease X”.
• The work is being carried out at the government’s high-security Porton Down laboratory complex in Wiltshire by a team of more than 200 scientists.
• They have drawn up a threat list of animal viruses that are capable of infecting humans and could in future spread rapidly around the world.
• Which of them will break through and trigger the next pandemic is unknown, which is why it’s referred to only as “Disease X”.
• Originally, it was focused on COVID and testing the effectiveness of vaccines against new variants.
• But scientists at the center are now involved in monitoring several high-risk pathogens, including bird flu, monkeypox and hantavirus, a disease spread by rodents.
• Bird flu is currently thought to be the most likely pandemic threat.
• The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says at least 30,000 seabirds have died around the UK this summer as a more virulent strain of the H5N1 virus has swept around the world.
• There is also evidence of limited spread in some mammals.
• And four people working on poultry farms in the UK have also tested positive, but were only mildly affected.

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