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Syphilis-like diseases were already widespread in America before the arrival of Columbus
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One of the biggest mysteries in historical epidemics is whether syphilis was introduced in Europe by Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas. A new international study, led by the University of Basel with contributions from the Computational Evolution group at D-BSSE, reconstructed Treponema pallidum genomes from nearly 2000-year-old remains from Brazil. The finding: treponema diseases were already present in the New World at least 1000 years before Columbus set sail.