Until relatively recently, it was believed that measles was a potential culprit for the Antonine Plague. However, a 2010 study suggests that the measles virus in its current iteration did not evolve until the 10th or 11th centuries, making a variation of smallpox the most likely candidate for the pandemic of the Antonine era. See Yuki Furuse, Akira Suzuki, and Hitoshi Oshitani, “Origin of Measles Virus: Divergence from Rinderpest Virus Between the 11th and 12th Centuries,” Virology Journal 7 (2010).
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