Is a plague viral

Plagues are serious medical emergencies that have grown pandemic at several times in the past. According to the medical encyclopedia there are three major forms of this infectious disease; bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic.

For a plague to be considered viral a medical condition must be borne from a pathogen known as a virus. Viruses are tiny infectious agents that require a host cell in order to survive. Without the host cell the virus is unable to grow or reproduce. For example a computer virus is only able to grow or reproduce if the executable code or viral program has a host computer which is able to spread the code to other cells or computer programs on other machines.

Yes, the source of an infectious disease which spreads over vast areas of the planet, a plague in other words, can be a virus. However other pathogens that invade host cells can be the source of a plague. These might include, bacteria, fungi, parasites, prion. Any agent that has the potential to cause a pandemic could be the source of a plague.

Bubonic Plague

This is a bacterial borne plague where Yersinia pestis is typically understood the be the Gram Negative bacterium responsible for causing medical pandemonium and widespread death. Once the flea-like pathogen enters the skin it then finds it's way into the lymphatic system which is a center of auto immunity within the human body and destroys the system to the point where the host dies. A bubonic plague usually creates a death rate of approximately half of those infected and the death occurs usually within a week.

Once a human is infected by a bubonic bacteria then the other two types of plagues are likely to follow suit.

Septicemic Plague

Septicemia is blood poisoning. One function of blood cells is to clear the body of toxic waste. Blood cells are a bit like the female worker bees in a hive where the heart of a human might represent the queen bee. It is a proven fact that worker bees work from the moment they are born to the moment they die. Another fact about these bees is that they do not return to the colony if they are sickly. For some strange reason the worker bee is programmed to move away from the hive and the colony when it is sick. It goes somewhere else to die and protects the hive and colony from being subjected to damage. Unfortunately blood cells are not programmed like worker bees. Blood cells continue to travel towards the heart with whatever load they carry. If the load is super toxic then the rest of the body suffers.

So any pathogen that has the potential to cause poisoning of the blood is capable of causing septicemic plague. While this type of plague is not as popular as the bubonic variety, it is more deadly.

Pneumonic Plague

The lungs are the pneumonic organs in the human body. When the source of infection of a pandemic medical condition is in the lungs then the plague is considered a pneumonic plague. The pathogen might introduce itself in the lung tissue in a number of ways. The primary method is by inhalation of mist which is infected of a pathogen. This is called air or vector borne transmission and since the mist is already toxic then there is no need for an animal or flea to be involved directly.

Secondary pneumonic transmission occurs when poisoned blood is transferred to the lung tissue and that poisoned blood might be a result of a population experiencing a septicemic plague or a bubonic plague or both.

So while all three types of plagues are deadly and can cause pandemics that have the potential to kill a large percentage of the human population within weeks, it is not necessarily true that a plague is exclusively the domain of viruses.

The answer to "Is a plague viral?" is then NO but it can be.