From bubonic plague in the middle ages to bird flu or Sars in the 21st century, infectious diseases have spread horrifyingly fast in cities, where people live in close proximity and sometimes crowded together.
The footballers of Guinea say they were exiled and made to feel like they had "the plague" because of the presence of Ebola in their country when they played their qualifying matches for the Africa Cup of Nations.
The team's French coach, Michel Dussuyer, said some treated the players "as if they were like the plague".
Welby described Ebola as a "plague of extraordinary proportions" with reporters "as much at risk as anyone in a war zone".
First recounted in Spillover, which Walter Isaacson called a frightening and fascinating masterpiece, The Chimp and the River is the true account of how an unnoticed chimpanzee infection became a human plague.
"There's a real plague going on at the moment," she said.
A plague will never sweep the streets of Assassin's Creed: Unity, allowing sinister new clans to emerge from the festering alleyways.
Then, bang on cue, a quote from Noel – something along the lines of "I'd rather slam my tallywhacker in a rusty letterbox than be in a band again with that whomping great knobber" – swarms the internet like a plague of locusts, deflating the rumour where it stands.
Not so long ago, Maclean was shooting half-a-dozen foxes a season - well, you would, if they kept going through your poultry shed like the plague.
I also read a lot of apocalyptic science fiction: I use the specter of the zombie plague as motivation when I don't want to go to the gym.
Why?" Gadjieva said, calling the project a "feast during a plague".
