Public Health Officials Warn of Human Plague Case in Colorado

The Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment (PDPHE), in conjunction with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), is currently investigating a human case of plague based on preliminary test results.

The plague bacterium, known as Yersinia pestis, can be transmitted by fleas and wild rodents, such as prairie dogs, squirrels, rats, and rabbits.

According to the CDC, “Humans usually become infected through the bite of an infected rodent flea or by handling an infected animal. Plague can be cured with antibiotics, but these must be given promptly to prevent serious illness or death.”

Symptoms of plague include sudden fever and chills, severe headache, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and a general feeling of illness. Swollen lymph nodes with pain are also a common symptom.

Plague can manifest in three forms: Bubonic plague infects your lymph nodes, septicemic plague is in your blood and pneumonic plague affects your lungs. Health officials did not specify which form the case in Pueblo County was.

Alicia Solis, program manager of the Office of Communicable Disease and Emergency Preparedness at PDPHE, advises individuals to take precautions to protect themselves and their pets from plague.

Solis advised the public on how to protect themselves and their pets from the plague:

I understand the naming of this disease with the word “plague,” did not mean it was the original bubonic plague that killed tens of millions of people in Europe in the 14th century. I assumed it was the generic term for it. Little did I know that the infectious disease caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria is still hanging around and accounts for over 80 percent of U.S. plague cases.

Yersinia pestis accounts for all US plague cases- Y. pestis infection = plague. It's just that the disease has three courses- bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. 80% are bubonic plague. The other two make up the remainder.

Should you ever catch it, pray you get the bubonic variety- the other two are far worse, and pneumonic plague accounts for stories from the Black Death of things like people going to sleep healthy and never awakening in the morning. Septicemic plague is one of the handful of human infectious diseases that is 100% fatal when untreated.

I grew up in the intermountain west being cautioned to be careful around rodents because of plague and tularemia (which is also in the news due to a current case)...

The good news is that we in the US don't suffer from epidemics of plague, due to our first world hygiene (not many houses swarming with fleas) and good antibiotics. Other places where plague is endemic, namely several countries in South America and Africa aren't so lucky.

I actually know a guy who caught plague as a kid. He forever gets the bragging rights of having survived the actual Black Plague!

Lyme disease is another one to be of concern. My sister was bitten by a tick when on a hike. She thought nothing of it until the ring appeared around the bite. Six months later, she suffers a stroke. She did not know that if left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Her heart developed an atrial fibrillation caused by cardiac inflammation. That was the cause of the blood clot in her brain. People are unaware of the dangers flees and ticks pose.

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