Scientists find potential weakness in plague germ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The germ that caused the plague epidemic that ravaged medieval Europe has a weakness that could help make a particularly dangerous form easier to treat, according to a study published on Thursday.

A bacterium known as Yersinia pestis causes both bubonic plague, the dreaded Black Death spread when people are bitten by an infected flea, and pneumonic plague, spread from one person to another through coughing or sneezing.

There are periodic natural outbreaks of pneumonic plague like one that started in 2005 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There also is acute concern terrorists could harness the bacterium as an airborne germ warfare agent to spread pneumonic plague.

Writing in the journal Science, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said experiments with mice showed that the onslaught of the bacterium slows markedly when the germ cannot use a key protein.

Pneumonic plague can kill a person in three or four days after infection. Antibiotics can beat the bacterium, but by the time the infection becomes apparent the disease has progressed so far that it may be too late for them to do any good.

"It leaves a very narrow window of time that you could administer antibiotics and hope for good results," said William Goldman, the study's senior author. ...

•	Scientists find potential weakness in plague germ Scientific American, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 Byline: Will Dunham, Reuters

	Story also ran in 3 others:  Reuters.uk (UK), Scotsman (UK) and Science