Any body seen any thing on this?
NYC Hospital Patient Tests Positive For Bubonic Plague
The Associated Press
http://www.newsday.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=ny%2Dplague1107§io n=%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fnewyork
A New Mexico man in isolation at a New York City hospital tested positive for bubonic plague, the rare and dangerous bacterial disease, health officials said.
There had not been a case in New York City in at least the past 100 years, city health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said. There was no evidence of danger to the public, he said.
A woman who was traveling with the man also was hospitalized, but her tests had not been completed.
The 53-year-old man, listed in critical condition, and the 47-year-old woman, in stable condition, were being treated with antibiotics.
Plague is one of a handful of agents that federal health officials fear could be used in a bioterrorist attack. But officials at Beth Israel Hospital, where the pair were being treated, said the man’s case almost certainly was natural.
The man’s positive result came from a preliminary test, and more tests were being done, health officials said.
The pair showed up at the hospital’s emergency room Tuesday night, during a visit to New York, after several days of fever and swollen lymph nodes, hospital spokesman Mike Quane said.
The patients were placed in isolation. Health officials also were testing for more common respiratory illnesses.
The patients’ identities were not released.
Plague occurs in 10 to 20 people in the United States and 1,000 to 3,000 people worldwide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in seven cases is fatal.
Humans usually contract the disease from fleas that have fed on infected rodents.