How did remote places in Asia and Africa not succumb to the same wave of disease and death that the Native Americans did?

Question

I’m not saying they weren’t affected at all, but something like 90% of Native Americans were wiped out while places like Japan and deep parts of the African interior didn’t suffer nearly as hard, even though they previously had basically no contact with Europe.

In: 1583

Answer 1

Isolated places in Asia and Africa did suffer. Particularly in parts of far north eastern asia, the parts across from Alaska, colonization and disease devastated the populations there, just as happened to their counterparts in America.

However, many parts of africa and asia that seem isolated, really weren’t. East african ports in particular was part of trade routes linking India, Africa, and Europe for millenia. And these coastal hubs had links deep into the continent. Western Africa was connected via trade routes across the Sahara. Mansa Musa, the Emperor of Mali, went on Hajj to Mecca in the 1320s, a few decades before the Black Death would arrive in that part of the world.