Uploaded July 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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It's not a coronavirus like COVID-19, but it begins in mid-September, 1994, with two people suffering slight fevers, chest pains, coughing and bleeding from the nose and gums as doctors in Surat, India puzzle over a diagnosis. The patients die.

They are the first of 52 deaths the government blames on pneumonic plague.

"Particularly the whole persons who knows very about the plague are frightened."

Pneumonic plauge is a more virulent form of bubonic plague, the infamous Black Death. It can be spread through the air.

The fear that it is created has made refugees carry the infection to neighboring states.

Despite the fact plague is now treatable with antibiotics, a worldwide hysteria ensues. But, the outbreak is contained in early October and many experts conclude the wake-up call may benefit India's teeming masses.

Narrator: Don Harrison