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The specifics of how the person contracted the plague have not been revealed Three other people 250 miles (400km) away have been diagnosed this month Two have the bubonic plague while two have the more lethal pneumonic strain One man was treated for the bubonic plague after he ate a wild rabbit, while the first two patients were diagnosed with the more fatal and contagious pneumonic strain.

Cases have increased by 8% in just a week with nearly 2,000 people infected by the deadly airborne strain. Some 143 people have now been killed by the “medieval disease” in Madagascar. There are now warnings the plague could stretch across the sea and reach mainland Africa. Such an outbreak would be catastrophic and there are fears the virus could go global. Nine countries are now on high alert and have been told to brace for the plague.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment laboratory yesterday [8 Jul 2014] identified pneumonic plague in a Colorado resident. Investigation revealed the family dog had recently died unexpectedly. The carcass was recovered and tested at the Colorado State University Veterinarian Diagnostic Laboratory, where tests were positive for plague. ... Even though it doesn't kill people in large numbers like it once did, it is a serious disease ... There are 3 types of plague; all can be potentially deadly, if not treated. The 1st is bubonic, which causes lymph nodes to swell. There is also septicemic, which comes about...

A cocktail of three flu viruses are reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague, which it is believed may be far more dangerous than swine flu. The death toll has reached 189 and more than 1 million people have been infected, most of them in the nine regions of Western Ukraine. President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko has called in the World Health Organisation and a team of nine specialists are carrying out tests in Kiev and Lviv to identify the virus. Samples have been sent to London for analysis. President Yushchenko said: “People are dying. The epidemic is...

One day last October, Eric York lugged the carcass of an adult mountain lion from his truck and laid it carefully on a tarp on the floor of his garage. The female mountain lion had a bloody nose, but her hide bore no other signs of trauma. York, a biologist at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, found the big cat lying motionless near the canyon’s South Rim. He was determined to learn why she died. Because the park lacks a forensics lab, he did the postmortem in his garage, in a village of about 2,000 park employees. Epidemic experts...

Source: Washington University School of Medicine Date: January 27, 2007 Disabling Key Protein May Give Physicians Time To Treat Pneumonic Plague Science Daily — The deadly attack of the bacterium that causes pneumonic plague is significantly slowed when it can't make use of a key protein, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in this week's issue of Science. Scanning electron micrograph depicting a mass of Yersinia pestis bacteria (the cause of bubonic plague) in the foregut of the flea vector. (Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH) Speed is a primary concern in pneumonic plague, which...

Associated Press Writer KINSHASA, Congo -- A rare form of plague has killed at least 61 people at a diamond mine in the remote wilds of northeast Congo, and authorities fear hundreds more who fled into the forests to escape the contagion are infected and dying, the World Health Organization said Friday. Eric Bertherat, a doctor for the U.N. health agency, said the outbreak has been building since December around a mine near Zobia, 170 miles north of Kisangani, the capital of the vast Oriental province. Nearly all the 7,000 miners have abandoned the infected area and sought refuge in...