Posted on 06/04/2009 6:38:08 PM PDT by george76
An 8-year-old New Mexico boy has died and his 10-year-old sister was hospitalized after both contracted bubonic plague, the first recorded human plague cases in the nation so far this year.
Plague is generally transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas, but also can be transmitted by direct contact with infected animals, including rodents, rabbits and pets.
Symptoms of the bubonic form of the plague in humans include fever, chills, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea and swollen lymph nodes in the groin, armpit or neck areas. Pneumonic plague, which is an infection of the lungs, can include severe cough, difficulty breathing and bloody sputum.
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Are you referring to this?
There's a couple of recent books about that trip. Try Gaspar de Carvajal.
Santa Fe County. RIP.
I lived in Albuquerque in the late fifties on Sandia Base. We had reports of bubonic plague every spring, and we kids were warned to keep clear of any cute bunnies we encountered in the area.
Have to go back to roadrunner on a stick.
There was a veterinarian in Arizona a few years ago who caught tularemia (probably while rabbit-hunting) and died of it.
Ironic in that being a veterinarian, he should have known about it.
That was probably a very cool time to be at Sandia. And yes, the critters are still out and about. I was out by the rocket sled track just the other day.
Once a month we'd have to take our food in a lead box, and all convoy out into the desert somewhere for our worst case scenario practice.
For cheap entertainment, I remember they'd give us kids geiger counters, and set us loose on a big pile of rocks. We were supposed to pick out the ones that made the geiger counter do a continuous click/buzz.
And I think the movie theater on base was about fifteen cents. Saturday was when you'd see the next installment of hop a long Cassidy or some cowboy, and some movie tone news thing before the regular feature.
LOL, I didn't even think about it, but you could ride your bikes to the movie theater on base, and you didn't have to worry anyone was going to steal it. It really was a whole different world back then..The films they'd show us at school, assuring us if we got nuked, we'd all be okay if we put our heads under our desks, and drank water from the toilet tank, and ate our lead box food.
We were living there when some reporter flew over Monsanto Mtn, and did some expose about the "hollowed out mountain". I remember all the adults being very mad about that.
If they're given in time, yes. This little bugger actually attacks the immune system (phagocytes, specifically) and other defenses, fever, tend to run away on you.
Yersinia pestis actually was introduced to this country by illegal immigrants. Chinese. In 19th century San Francisco. Since then North America has been the second of the plague reservoirs, Central Asia being the original.
Don't pet dead animals and you'll be fine. Prairie-dog-on-a-stick is probably off the menu. Sorry.
1972 model with the 440 was cool !!!
NM list PING!
Which is why the good people in NW Colorado have been on a search and destroy mission against ground squirrels, ferrets, prairie dogs, jack rabbits, and other assorted vermin for over a century. Also one reason - the other being tularemia - one should wait until after a good hard frost to hunt bunnies. Cut down on the incidence of plague and produced a great population of long distance shooters.
Now the USFWS and other urban do-gooders have introduced a population of protected ferrets and are talking about protecting some species of ground squirrel.
What morons!
The area around the small town of Tesuque, NM (about 5 miles north of Santa Fe) is considered by epidemiologists to be the global epicenter of Bubonic Plague.
Fortunately, it's generally isolated to infected fleas on rodents (Rabbits, Kangaroo Rats, Rocky Mountain Ground Squirrels [often mistaken for a small Chipmunk], and Deer Mice), and pretty much only crosses species when humans make the mistake of messing with fleabitten (hence the term) carriers.
A big problem occurs when someone gets it, and then travels somewhere else where the doctors aren't familiar with it and then dies before the proper diagnosis is made in time (as happened to a hiker from Boston years ago). If they're in a major population center, and the disease goes “pneumonic”, and can be transmitted from human to human by aspiration, then it's big trouble.
The fleas will jump off in swarms when their rodent host dies, and are attracted to the nearest warm-blooded creature. If you're close enough to see that happen, you're too close for your own good. I learned as a little boy in Northern NM not to ever, ever, ever handle any wild rodent in any way. Never have, never will. Not even cute little bunnies that would fit nicely in my crock pot. A classmate of mine got it and survived - messing with a “Chipmunk”. She's lucky.
One of my parent's friends was denied a visa to Egypt because his passport home of record was Tesuque, NM, and somehow the Egyptian health authorities knew about the implications.
NM news reporting a 3rd case. I think it might be a rough year for hanta virus too; we have been pretty wet, lots of mice upcoming.
This article of a New Mexico boy who died of the bubonic plague may be of interest to Smokin’ Joe ping list .
I thought I read of something about plague related deaths in China as well, but I don’t recall where I read it.
Plague is endemic in the animal population (mostly rodents) in New Mexico there are usually a few cases every year and have been for a long time.
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