COLONIAL adventures have been blamed for many ills. Now we can add syphilis to the list.
It appears that Columbus and his crew were responsible for introducing Europe to the bacteria that went on to become venereal syphilis, according to genetic evidence from Guyana.
The spirochete bacteria that cause syphilis are closely related to a skin infection called yaws, which once afflicted children throughout the humid tropics and still occurs in Africa and Asia.
Kristin Harper of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and colleagues sequenced yaws genes from Africa and Asia, and syphilis genes from around the world – plus…
