Posted on 05/01/2015 6:29:34 AM PDT by null and void
A plague-infected dog spread the dangerous disease to four Colorado residents, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Health officials told ABC News that this the first report of a dog infecting a human with the plague in the U.S.
The dog, a 2-year-old American pit bull terrier, became sick last summer with a fever and jaw rigidity, among other symptoms. The dog's health declined so quickly that it was euthanized the following day at a local vet's office, health officials said.
Four days later, the dog's owner entered the hospital with a fever and a bloody cough that became worse over the next few hours, but an initial blood culture was misidentified, according to the CDC report.
As the patient's symptoms grew worse, the test was redone and he was found to have been infected with pnumonic plague, according to the CDC report. The remains of the dog were also tested and were found to be positive for the plague bacteria.
"For pneumonic plague a more likely scenario would be you have a cat [play] with prairie dogs and infected fleas get on the cat," Runfola said. "The cat gets sick and sneezes and coughs on its owner."
The plague is known to be endemic to prairie dogs in the American Southwest, which can then lead to isolated outbreaks of the disease in domestic animals or humans.
"Pneumonic plague is the worst form," said Douglas. "It’s the one that you least want to get. You get sick fast and the chances of getting a rocky or even fatal course" are increased.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Plague first came to the United States in the 1850's. The rail companies were importing Chinese Coolies to work on the transcontinental railway.
There was a small plague outbreak in San Francisco's Chinatown district. An alert doctor spotted the outbreak almost immediately, and appealed to the city council to institute a quarantine and rat catching program.
The town fathers refused to believe there was plague in their fair city.
They screwed around long enough for it to infect the local ground squirrel population where there was no hope stopping it from spreading. Thanks to their inaction, one can be exposed to plague anywhere in the western US.
Any parallels one wishes to draw with a more recent "gay plague" are left to the reader as an exercise.
Those who do not learn the lessons of the past...
About the same time the "Dreamers" started showing up....Naw, just a coincidence.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
In California, ground squirrels are said to be a possible source of plague. Interestingly, the California tree rat is the same subspecies as the rat that brought the plague to Europe, although I have never heard of any of them carrying the disease.
Oh please. Plague has been in the SW US time immemorial. People are infected every year.
HEY, leave my conspiracy theory ALONE!
Must be a slow news day. This was almost a year ago.
Nope, not in the least. The plague has been present in the southwest forever. We get an occasional case here in NM, one to a few a year, maybe.
Well, the only thing we can do is kill all the pit bulls, outlaw the possession of them, hunt them down and eradicate them.
(Throw a few chihuahuas in there, just to make it fair.)
I kept hoping my ex would develop "jaw rigidity," but it never happened...hence the "ex" part.
Thanks for posting this. My daughter is studying veterinary technology, works in a veterinary clinic, and lives in Arapahoe County. I just sent this to her — she hadn’t heard about it. She’s going to raise it at the college and clinic. It seems to have occurred in Arapaho, Adams, and Douglas Counties east and south of Denver. Sounds like they need more prairie dog shoots.
CDC article for more technical info here —> http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6416a1.htm?s_cid=mm6416a1_w
Bubonic plague has been around for years. This is pneumonic plague, a different type and more virulent. Also first known dog-to-human transmission, if I read the story correctly.
I’d be interested in learning what your daughter finds out. If you post that info, please ping me! THANKS
Uh oh....almost time for my politically incorrect Arapahoe joke that almost got me banned here.
Read what I was responding to, please.
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