What is typhus in concentration camps
Typhus symptoms.
What is typhus in concentration camps
Jewish doctors in Nazi-occupied Poland stopped an epidemic in its tracks. Here’s how.
When a deadly typhus outbreak struck Poland's Warsaw ghetto during WWII, Jewish doctors helped stop the disease in its tracks, saving thousands.
More than 400,000 Jewish people were crammed into the 1.3-square-mile (3.4 square kilometers) ghetto in the Nazi-occupied country, and severe overcrowding, exposure to the elements and starvation created a perfect incubator for epidemics.
When typhus broke out in 1941, it should have devastated the ghetto's vulnerable population.
But the disease began to sharply decline far sooner than expected, a new study finds. Swift containment efforts by the ghetto's Jewish community succeeded in ending it sooner than if it had naturally run its course, sparing more than 100,000 people from infection and likely preventing tens of thousands of deaths.
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Typhus is caused by the bacter