Bubonic Plague: Not just for Medievalists anymore

Seems the Black Death is back. Via Andrew Sullivan and Chris Bodenner:

As practitioners of the Dark Ages, what goes around comes around:

At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with [bubonic plague, which], swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. ... Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. One security source said: "This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease. It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda."

However, after noting a "total blackout from the Algerian media," Olivier Guitta says that Western nations should also be worried:

[I]magine if one of the infected individuals board a flight to Paris, London or New York, this person could be the means of "delivering" the weapon. The damage could be enormous.

While modern antibiotics can easily knock out the disease, it must be administered quickly, and still carries a 5% mortality rate.

Kind of a mixed curse, so to speak. But it is no laughing matter.