plagues from a secular viewpoint-disease

The fifth plague called down on Egypt was a mysterious and highly contagious disease that swiftly killed off the Egyptians' livestock. This biblical scourge is reminiscent of a real plague known as rinderpest, an infectious and lethal viral disease that decimated populations of cattle and other ruminants across Africa and Europe from the 18th through the late 19th centuries.

Rinderpest was caused by a virus in the same family as canine distemper and measles; infected animals developed a high fever, diarrhea and ulcers in their mouths and noses, according to a manual diagnosing rinderpest, produced by the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations.

The disease is thought to have originated in Asia, and traveled to Egypt 5,000 years ago along prehistoric trading routes, the New York Times reported in 2010. Its mortality rate was exceptionally high, often exceeding 80 percent. It killed an estimated 200 million cattle in the 18th century, according to a study published in the journal Medical History in 1997, and when rinderpest emerged in Africa in the 19th century, it killed 5.2 million cattle, causing one-third of the population of Ethiopia to die of starvation, a study published in the journal Science reported in 2008.  

Rinderpest was last diagnosed in Kenya in 2001, and was declared completely eradicated in 2010, according to the New York Times.


haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues