Health officials in the Sierra Nevada region of California announced this week that a local resident tested positive for plague, an extremely rare bacterial infection usually transmitted through flea bites.
The case is still under investigation, but the officials believe the person, who is now recovering at home, may have been bitten while camping in South Lake Tahoe. Plague can be treated with antibiotics if it is caught early, but can otherwise become very serious.
Here’s what to know.
Plague still exists?
It does. Most people think of plague as the “Black Death,” a medieval pandemic that might have killed tens of millions of people in Europe. But the plague bacteria has survived through the centuries by circulating among certain rodents and fleas that serve as long-term reservoirs, making it nearly impossible to eradicate.
Experts believe plague was introduced to the United States in 1900, when rat-infested steamships pulled into port cities. The disease periodically broke out in rapidly developing urban areas with lots of rats — such as Los Angeles in the 1920s. Now, cases are rare here, occurring mostly in rural areas where people tend to interact with wild rodents.
How does plague spread and cause sickness?
Plague is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. Humans can acquire the infection when they are bitten by fleas that were living on infected chipmunks, squirrels, ferrets and other creatures. People can also become infected by handling animal tissue or body fluids, such as when skinning a carcass after hunting. Pets, particularly cats, are also susceptible to the disease when they play with or eat sick rodents.
There are three main types of plague, said Dr. Edward Jones-Lopez, an infectious disease specialist with Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California. The most common is bubonic, in which the bacteria multiply in the lymph nodes closest to a flea bite and trigger an inflammatory response. Septicemic plague occurs when the infection spreads to the bloodstream. Pneumonic plague refers to an infection in the lungs.
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The post What to Know About Plague After a New Case in California appeared first on New York Times.
