Jessica Ball Current Events 12/5/16

Current Event: Did Malaria Impact the fall of the Roman Empire?

                Researchers have just discovered a genomic evidence of malaria in the 2,000 year old humans that lived during the Roman Empire. Data they collected confirmed that the ancient peoples they were testing had the same type of malaria that has killed 438,000 people, which is spread by mosquitos. Scientist Hendrik Poinar believes that malaria resulted in widespread death in the age of the Roman Empire. Researchers believe that there was no one cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, but malaria definitely was a cause in the dwindling population.

                This is such an amazing discovery, thanks to new technology that allowed us to find the genomic evidence. The Roman Empire fell for multiple reasons but it is now official that one of the large contributions to the downfall was in fact malaria. No immunity can be built up against this disease which is very sad, but at least this great event in history was discovered.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/05/health/malaria-evidence-roman-empire/index.html