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

Others have already pointed out that Europe, Asia, and Africa had plenty of contact and intermingling with each other. (really, Europe and Asia are geographically their own continent) But another factor is the lower prevalence of animal agriculture in the pre-Columbian Americas. A lot of diseases came about because of humans and animals living in close proximity. (and think of the waste!) People in the early Americans did have domesticated animals, but didn’t use animal agriculture to the same extent, and the species they did use didn’t seem to bring them disease. (at least, not the kinds of diseases that Old World people had)