The role of ships in spreading viruses over great distances
History shows the destructive role ships can play in transmitting viruses across vast continents and over many centuries. Merchant ships carrying rats with infested fleas along with their payload were carriers of the Plague of Justinian (541-542 AD), which devastated the Byzantine Empire. The ships carrying grain from Egypt were home to flea-infested rats that ate from barns.
Constantinople was particularly hard hit, with an estimated 5,000 casualties per day. Globally, it is estimated that up to 50 million people have died - half of the world's population. The Black Death Plague was also carried by rats on merchant ships along the European trade routes.
Plague struck Europe in 1347 when 12 ships docked in the Sicilian port of Messina. Subsequently, those stationed on the ships called "death ships" were either dead or sick. The Black Death soon spread to ports around the world such as Marseille, Rome and Florence, and by 1348 reached London with devastating consequences. The Italian writer, poet and scientist Giovanni Boccaccio wrote how horror gripped Florence when relatives left the infected family members. In an almost incomprehensible way, he wrote, "fathers and mothers refused to feed their own children as if they did not belong to them."
Residents of a European city bury the victims of the Black Death.
In 1347 ships began to leave European ports. Venice was the first city to close, and those who were allowed to enter were forced to enter a 40-day quarantine: the word “quarantine” comes from the Italian quarantena, or 40 days. By January 1349, mass graves had spread outside London, as more and more dead had to be buried.
Naval ships as well as travelers around the world spread cholera pandemics throughout the 19th century. During the first pandemic in 1817, British warships and naval ships are believed to have spread cholera outside of India, where it originated. By the 1820s, cholera had spread throughout Asia, reaching Thailand, Indonesia, China, and Japan through shipping. British troops spread the infection to the Persian Gulf, advancing through Turkey and Syria. Subsequent outbreaks of the disease from the 1820s to the 1860s were associated with the development of trade and the movement of troops.
Egyptians board boats on the Nile during a cholera epidemic.
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The Spanish flu of 1918-1919 was originally spread by soldiers on overcrowded military ships during World War I. The rate of transmission of infection on these ships was rapid, and soldiers died in large numbers.
Sick people on board the ship.
The Spanish flu was spread across Europe to France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Russia. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers crossing the Atlantic and back in warships provided ideal conditions for transmission.