Surat plague of 1994 re-examined.

ABSTRACT

A plague episode in Surat in 1994, and its spread to other cities in India, lasted only a little over 2 weeks, but it created an unprecedented panic that had global repercussions. At first, the Surat hospital doctors could not diagnose the disease, but when they did, immediate intervention, in the form of preventation and treatment (administration of antibodies) prevented the disease from spreading beyond Surat, Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and their vicinities. Fewer than 1,200 people were diagnosed with plague. A DNA-based study in 2000 decisively concluded that the Surat episode was a plague, but the Indian isolates were genetically more heterogeneous compared to others in the world.