The strain that’s killed 124 people on the Indian Ocean island states and infected hundreds more is actually three plagues in one.

The World Health Organization South Africans are at risk because of trade and travel links with Madagascar.

Plague is endemic in Madagascar with annual outbreaks caused by rats fleeing forest fires.

This year though the bubonic plague strain carried by these rats and fleas on them is accompanied by much deadlier pneumonic plague which is spread between humans by saliva droplets

There is also septecaemic plague, a deadly blood infection.

Immediate treatment with antibiotics, that didn’t exist in the 1300s, is highly effective.

Left untreated, the plague is almost 100 percent lethal.

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They’re on their way home where their families say they never gave up hope of seeing them again.

It took international mediators nearly two years of negotiations to secure their freedom.

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The hostages were met by their diplomatic representatives in Nairobi.

They come from Cambodia, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Their ship was seized south of the Seychelles.

When eventually it sank, the hostages were moved into the bush where they were forced to live off the land.

They spoke of eating rats to stay alive.

Their ship was  not insured against piracy.

Mediators had to get the pirates to modify their huge demands and accept a lesser payment for what they called compensation for the local community

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