CAJ | 학술논문

Objective:To characterize the case fatality and estimate the symptomatic period of bubonic plague.Methods:Epidemiologic analyses of a previous outbreak of plague in Osaka and Kobe,two major port cities in Japan, from 1899-1900 were performed.In addition to date of onset of symptoms,gender,age and the date of death were extracted from the historical data.The time from onset to death (symptomatic period)was fitted to gamma distribution using the maximum likelihood method.Results:Temporal distribution revealed suspected chains of transmission of the primary pneumonic plague at the late stage of the outbreak.The case fatality of bubonic plague without specific treatment was 83.4 %,and the mean time from onset to death was estimated as 4.7 days (95 % confidence interval:4.0,5.5).Conclusion:Case fatality of bubonic plague without specific treatment was extremely high.The symptomatic period of bubonic plague appeared to be longer than that of pneumonic plague.