London | There is a plaque in the English seaside town of Weymouth which records, matter-of-factly: “The Black Death entered England in 1348 through this port. It killed 30-50 per cent of the country’s total population”.

International epidemics are a centuries-old phenomenon that have often changed the course of history. The Black Death, which some believe originated in China and others trace to the Crimea, caused devastation across Europe — bringing social, economic and political turmoil in its wake. Centuries later, it was European explorers who carried new diseases across the Atlantic — creating epidemics that decimated indigenous populations in the Americas.

Financial Times