When researching the Black Death most records mention the impacts upon Europe, and occasionally Asia. I was wondering how the Black Death affected Africa. I know from Ibn Battuta that it reached Damascus, and that it was recorded in Alexandria. Was this the extent to its impact in Africa? Did it have an impact upon Sub-Saharan Africa?
The rat that carries it didn't ever make it to Africa.
You might want to take a look at Chouin & Decorse; "Prelude to the Atlantic trade: new perspectives on Southern Ghana’s pre-Atlantic history (800-1500)." in Journal of African History 51.2 (2010).
They talk about a major collapse of a precolonial ironworks in Ghana, and argue that the only decent explanation is the plague. They say that there is evidence for it being in the Maghreb, and there were know trade routes that crossed the Sahara through which it might have been carried. They argue also that though it hasn't been properly researched or evidenced, there's a good chance this is more down to a lack of sources and a lack of interest in precolonial African deaths, especially since, for Africans, the plague might have been mixed in with other major diseases and possibly less of a big deal than it was for Europeans and others. There are also less trade ports and the like so transmission would have been slower. I wouldn't be surprised if it was more common in East Africa due to the arab slave trade.