The plague bacteria Yersinia pestis is named after Swiss researcher Alexandre Yersin, who is credited with first isolating it in 1894 in the bodies of dead plague victims in Hong Kong.
In Southeast Asia a virus that kills chickens is now also killing people. And in those deaths, public health experts hear the distant rumbling of a global catastrophe.
Nearly half a billion people get malaria worldwide each year. More than a million die. After decades of neglect, the world is renewing its fight against the disease.