ABSTRACT

Epidemiologists suggest that plague was transmitted from rats to humans as a bubonic plague somewhere in Yunnan, China in 1772. The re-emergence of plague in China and its arrival in Hong Kong triggered several 'outbreak response teams' being sent to the epidemic. The arrival of plague in China, India, and beyond, occurred rather fortuitously as modern scientific, laboratory-based medicine, revolutionized by rapid developments during two world wars, became globally available. Rapid industrialization and growth and global integration of the Indian Ocean Rim, and Pacific Rim cities of Singapore, Taiwan, Bombay, San Francisco, and Australia, coupled with significant Chinese diaspora and Indian diaspora, facilitated the spread of plague out of south-east Asia and beyond. Plague changed the political, economic, social, and cultural landscapes of the countries it infested. In this case, it was the countries of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Rims of Asia.