Posted on 08/22/2020 9:39:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In the Middle Ages, the plague caused tens of millions of deaths in Europe in a series of outbreaks known as the Black Death. And while it's extremely rare in modern times, the deadly bacterial infection is still around today — but how likely are you to catch it?
This week, California reported its first case of plague in five years. The patient, a resident of the South Lake Tahoe area, is said to be recovering at home. And in July, a 15-year-old boy in western Mongolia died of bubonic plague that he contracted from an infected marmot.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 3,248 cases were reported worldwide between 2010 and 2015, resulting in 584 deaths. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Peru were the most affected countries.
Reports of the plague can be scary — but experts say there's little cause for concern in most cases.
What is the plague?
Plague is a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which affects humans and other mammals. There are three types of plague: bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic.
Bubonic is the most common form, accounting for more than 80% of cases in the U.S. Pneumonic plague is the most serious.
Many animals can get the plague, including rock squirrels, wood rats, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks, mice, voles, and rabbits. It's typically transmitted from animals to humans, with much more rare cases of the disease being spread person to person.
How is the plague transmitted?
The plague is transmitted through fleas that live on rodents, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). People typically get bubonic or septicemic plague after they are bitten by a flea that is carrying the bacterium.
Humans may also contract the disease when handling an animal that is infected, resulting in either bubonic or septicemic plague.
In some cases, people can catch the pneumonic plague when an infected person coughs, causing infectious droplets to spread. This is the only way for the plague to spread between people.
Cats and dogs can both lead to human infections. Cats are particularly susceptible to getting sick, and have been linked to several cases of human plague in the U.S. via respiratory droplets in recent decades.
What are the symptoms of the plague?
A key symptom of the bubonic plague is buboes: painful, swollen lymph nodes in the groin or armpits. Other symptoms include fever, weakness, coughing and chills.
Patients with septicemic plague develop fever, chills, extreme weakness, adnominal pain, shock and possibly internal bleeding. Skin and other tissues, especially on fingers, toes, and the nose may turn black and die.
Patients with pneumonic plague — the most serious form of the disease — develop fever, headache, weakness, pneumonia, shortness of breath, chest pain, cough and sometimes bloody or watery mucous. Pneumonia could cause respiratory failure and shock.
What regions are most affected by the plague? The plague was first introduced to the U.S. in 1900, from steamships carrying infected rats. The last urban outbreak of rat-associated plague in the U.S. was in Los Angeles between 1924 and 1925.
"The risk relates to both the prevalence of plague where you live and the types of exposures you have to rodents and fleas," Dr. Erica S. Shenoy, a medical director and associate chief at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, told CBS News on Wednesday.
In the U.S., an average of seven plague cases per year are reported to the CDC from the western part of the country, particularly in rural areas. Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and New Mexico are the most affected states, where the bacterium is not uncommon.
Since the mid–20th century, plague in the United States has typically occurred in the rural West. The case shown in Illinois was lab-associated.
CDC
Dr. Robyn R.M. Gershon, a professor and program director at the NYU School of Global Public Health, told CBS News on Wednesday that only people who live in an area where the disease is common need to be concerned.
"With proper precautions, you can avoid contact with possibly infected fleas," Gershon said. "If you do get infected, there is very good treatment available with antibiotics. The only risk is that the infection will not be diagnosed promptly, which can then lead to more serious disease."
There have been five cases in the U.S. so far this year. A significantly higher portion of cases are reported in parts of Africa and Asia, but it can be found on all continents except Oceania.
How is plague treated? "Infections in humans are rare," Dr. Gershon said. "Most recover, although occasionally there is a death related to some of the more severe forms the disease can take."
Early diagnosis and treatment are essential for survival and reducing future complications. Common antibiotics, such as streptomycin, can prevent complications or in some cases death, if administered soon after symptoms present themselves.
Untreated bubonic or septicemic plague can develop in the pneumonic plague, which spreads to the lungs. The bubonic type has a case-fatality ratio of 30% to 60%, according to the WHO.
Pneumonic plague, when left untreated, is always fatal within 18 to 24 hours.
"The key for clinicians is suspecting plague in the first place, obtaining the right specimens to make a diagnosis, and initiating treatment even before the diagnosis is made — as soon as you suspect it, you should start treating while the evaluation is ongoing," Shenoy said.
There is not currently a vaccine for the plague available in the U.S., but researchers are investigating several options to try to eradicate it. No vaccines are expected to be commercially available in the near future.
How can I protect myself from the plague?
"It's important that individuals take precautions for themselves and their pets when outdoors, especially while walking, hiking and/or camping in areas where wild rodents are present," California's El Dorado County Public Health Officer Dr. Nancy Williams said this week. "Human cases of plague are extremely rare but can be very serious."
Low levels of the bacterium persist in certain rodent communities without causing a significant die-off, making the disease difficult to fully eradicate.
Eliminating rodents is a key prevention method. Removing nesting places — brush, rock, trash, firewood and possible food supplies — around homes and workplaces will help.
If you come across a sick or dead animal, do not touch it yourself, especially without gloves. Contact your local health department regarding disposal.
Using insect repellent that contains DEET could prevent flea bites while camping, hiking, or during other outdoor activities.
It is also important to treat dogs and cats for fleas on a regular basis, and the CDC advises not sleeping in the same bed with pets that roam free in endemic areas.
In recent decades, an average of seven human plague cases have been reported each year (range: 1–17 cases per year). Between 1900 and 2012, 1006 confirmed or probable human plague cases occurred in the United States.
...the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million and the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000. The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000.
Has it been 5 years? I remember the outbreak at Yosemite not long ago.
How do you find a lightning victim? Does that include people who get super powers? The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000.
That doesn't seem that rare?
I remember getting inoculated for Plague before shipping out to Vietnam in 1966 (along with 21 other inoculations). It turns out diseases were the last thing I should have worried about dying from.
This is the new Panic Button.
/Bring out your dead!
Ever wonder why bubonic plague did not break out in Europe during WW II? There were famine struck crowded cities, large prisoner of war camps, unspeakable concentration camps. All these places had rats, fleas and bad sanitation. There was typhus and other infections but no plague. The answer lies in genetic suseptibility. After plague repeatdly ravaged Europen populations over 4,000 years, the susceptibilty gene was gradually eliminated. Interesting footnote. When plague hit 3 out of 4 became ill, of those two recovered and one died. If P was the allele for plague resistance, and p was the allele for susceptibility, then PP meant you were resistant and neither became ill or died, Pp meant you got sick but revovered. pp meant you got sick and died. After a while given that there was no vaccine or cure ( bubonic plague is now very treatable with tetracyclines), the susceptibility gene died out. Most people of European descent are now resistant carrying PP or some Pp . Almost none are pp.
Genes matter. Whether or not you get COVID-19 has more to do with your genetic susceptibility and much less with masks.
And what do we know about the plague patient patient???? Article says resident, but citizen?, foreign traveler?...what else do we know??
My uncle was getting shipped out to Vietnam the next day from Hawaii. But he had a physical and the doctor said he was going to burn up from his fair skin. So they sent him to Kansas, instead. He was in some position he probably wouldn’t have lived long enough to get sunburn. But the military has its ways.
Can your dog detect plague?
Sometimes they're misclassified as COVID deaths. Or when you read that someone was "smoking in bed".
You are absolutely correct-one of my best buddies from our youth went to Viet Nam, and got exposed to Agent Orange. He died from complications from that (including maltreatment from VA) a few years back. He spent his life disabled from it before he died. RIP, Ken.
Well, if he can, he has not mentioned it so far, so it’s all good.
:D
Maybe, but let's not forget the widespread use of DDT, which probably saved more lives than all the medicine ever practiced, especially when you consider it's effectiveness against malaria.
#5. rexthecat: I too got a Plague shot before going to So. Vietnam in Oct. 1970 as a journalist attached to a fact-finding mission. When we got to our hotel, The Majestic, on Tu Do Street in Saigon, we were greeted by a hugh sign across the lobby of the building that said “International Plague Conference” on the 3rd floor.
Small world.
Now the only rats I see on a daily basis are DemocRAT/leftists. They are more dangerous than the four-legged kind. They betrayed us in Vietnam and now they are trying to overrun America. Once a rat, always a rat. Just look at Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters and tell me that they are not human rats of the worst kind.
“A South Lake Tahoe resident has tested positive for the human plague, the first case in California in five years.
“The person, “an avid walker,” may have been bitten by an infected flea while walking their dog along the Truckee River in the Tahoe Keys area, according to El Dorado health officials.
You could have a side business using your dog to detect pregnancy. It’s better than having to pee on a piece of plastic right?
I never checked.
Before his untimely death, Dr. George Chambers, DO & expert in mammal to human transmission of infectious diseases told me (one weekend at TXARNG drill) that the “largest concentration of plague-bearing vectors” in CONUS is prairie dogs, ground squirrels & other smaller rodents on the very large but sparsely populated Indian Reservations of AZ & NM.
Dr. Chambers further said, after I asked, that the MAJOR reason that we have so FEW cases of plague in the USA is that there are FEW instances where the vector, which has inflected fleas, comes in contact with an uninfected human.
Yours, TMN78247
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