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Virgin-soil epidemic — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin-soil_epidemic
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-05T23:52:32.532Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: eaef5d78335fd936386fa8774a2665e1b72d72c2cf800d2eb1182d56c962d6f8
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How to cite

Virgin-soil epidemic — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin-soil_epidemic (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_f87768dcd4ee (Metraipolis archive dc_f87768dcd4ee, sha256 eaef5d78335fd936386fa8774a2665e1b72d72c2cf800d2eb1182d56c962d6f8)

BibTeX

@misc{dcf87768dcd4ee,
  title = {Virgin-soil epidemic — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin-soil_epidemic},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_f87768dcd4ee; sha256 eaef5d78335fd936386fa8774a2665e1b72d72c2cf800d2eb1182d56c962d6f8},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin-soil_epidemic. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

In epidemiology, a virgin-soil epidemic is an epidemic in which populations that previously were in isolation from a pathogen are immunologically unprepared upon contact with the novel pathogen. Virgin-soil epidemics have occurred with European settlement, particularly when European explorers and colonists took diseases to lands they settled in the Americas, Australia and Pacific Islands. When a population has been isolated from a particular pathogen without any contact, individuals in that population have not built up any immunity to that organism and also have not received immunity passed from mother to child. The epidemiologist Francis Black has suggested that some isolated populations may not have mixed enough to become as genetically heterogeneous as their colonizers, which would also have affected their natural immunity, due to the potential benefits to immune system function due to genetic diversity. That can happen also when such a considerable amount of time has passed between disease outbreaks that no one in a particular community has ever experienced the disease to gain immunity. Consequently, when a previously unknown disease is introduced to such a population, there is an increase in the morbidity and mortality rates. Historically, that increase has been often devastating and always noticeable. Diseases introduced to the Americas by Europeans and Africans include smallpox, yellow fever, measles and malaria as well as new strains of typhus and influenza. Virgin-soil epidemics also occurred in other regions. For example, the Roman Empire spread smallpox to new populations in Europe and the Middle East in the 2nd century AD, and the Mongol Empire brought the bubonic plague to Europe and the Middle East in the 14th century.

Tema degli esploratori: agenti e intelligenza artificiale (deposito sistematico; ricerca «agent-based model»).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Virgin-soil epidemic» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin-soil_epidemic
Wikidata Q7934023 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7934023
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin-soil_epidemic?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1378541285, consultata il 2026-10-05T23:22:06.124Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: 276cafab3d3ee7f3841b8e46903aa2253815013d4ff8952bd7bdd11cb01e4e0a