Box 1.

: Role of infectious disease in warfare in history

• The inhabitants of Central and South America were decimated by smallpox and measles that accompanied the Spanish conquistadors³
• British forces used blankets contaminated with smallpox to infect North American Indians in the 18th century⁴
• The Tartars catapulted bodies infected with plague into Kaffa in the Crimea in 1346 at the end of a three year siege⁵
• The Japanese released fleas infected with plague in Chinese cities in the 1930s and 1940s⁶