twovultures
Donor
Please keep the objectifying jokes to a minimum
One of the great medical mysteries of history is that, while yellow fever escaped the confines of Africa and became established in the New World (with dramatic consequences for history) it never did so in tropical Asia. I wonder what happens if, for whatever reason, this disease does manage to make that leap across the Indian Ocean just as it did across the Atlantic.
For purposes of this scenario, let's imagine that a yellow fever pandemic reaches Asia at the same time as it did in the New World, circa 1645. The disease breaks out in Goa, arriving on a Portuguese ship that had stopped in Africa. It is rapidly spread by mosquitoes in the Aedes genus and its relatives, leaping from port city to port city with lethal results for people. The disease also travels inland, infecting wild primates in the tropical forests and therefore becoming endemic to the tropics of Asia.
While maybe not quite as dramatic as the Black Death, it will be a very deadly plague for the indigenous cultures of the continent for decades. As the disease becomes endemic and people are more likely to be infected in childhood, when the disease is less deadly, societies will adapt to live with it. Those infected once are immune (barring exposure to a different strain), so populations will recover. However, foreigners arriving to the region (except maybe Africans who will also be previously exposed to the disease) will be vulnerable to infection. While small groups of Europeans may benefit from the herd immunity of the Asians around them, large groups of Europeans will risk falling victim to a 'virgin soil' epidemic, with all members of the group becoming infected at once as the virus takes the opportunity to ravage a collection of naive bodies.
Any thoughts on how this changes things?
One of the great medical mysteries of history is that, while yellow fever escaped the confines of Africa and became established in the New World (with dramatic consequences for history) it never did so in tropical Asia. I wonder what happens if, for whatever reason, this disease does manage to make that leap across the Indian Ocean just as it did across the Atlantic.
For purposes of this scenario, let's imagine that a yellow fever pandemic reaches Asia at the same time as it did in the New World, circa 1645. The disease breaks out in Goa, arriving on a Portuguese ship that had stopped in Africa. It is rapidly spread by mosquitoes in the Aedes genus and its relatives, leaping from port city to port city with lethal results for people. The disease also travels inland, infecting wild primates in the tropical forests and therefore becoming endemic to the tropics of Asia.
While maybe not quite as dramatic as the Black Death, it will be a very deadly plague for the indigenous cultures of the continent for decades. As the disease becomes endemic and people are more likely to be infected in childhood, when the disease is less deadly, societies will adapt to live with it. Those infected once are immune (barring exposure to a different strain), so populations will recover. However, foreigners arriving to the region (except maybe Africans who will also be previously exposed to the disease) will be vulnerable to infection. While small groups of Europeans may benefit from the herd immunity of the Asians around them, large groups of Europeans will risk falling victim to a 'virgin soil' epidemic, with all members of the group becoming infected at once as the virus takes the opportunity to ravage a collection of naive bodies.
Any thoughts on how this changes things?