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

It’s a game of telephone. There were no truly isolated places in Asia and Africa, only places isolated *from* other places. There were no Europeans traveling to Madagascar before the 1500s, but there were European merchants traveling to Egypt, and Arabic merchants trading in both Egypt and Madagascar.

Same with Asia. Europeans would trade with Turks and Arabs, who would trade with Central Asia s, who would trade with Chinese merchants on the Silk Road. Chinese merchants would also trade in Japan, and the Japanese would trade with the Ainu in Hokkaido, who summered in Irktusk, so they would spread European germs all the way to the far corners of Siberia.