New Case of Fatal Bubonic Plague Detected in the U.S.

US health officials are investigating two cases of the plague. One patient is being treated in Colorado after contracting the medieval disease. 

There are several routes of transmission between infected animals and people, and the disease can present itself in three primary forms: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic.

The World Health Organization lists several ways that people might get sick: flea bites, contact with diseased tissues, and breathing in infected respiratory droplets. The pneumonic plague invariably kills if not treated; the bubonic plague has a mortality rate of 30 to 60%.

Millions of people died in medieval Europe due to the Black Death, a sickness that causes people to cough up blood.

The local officials in Colorado are still trying to figure out how the unidentified individual caught the disease. 

In the past, researchers in the state have discovered bacterial samples in squirrels.

Thanks to changes in lifestyle that make it harder for infected fleas to transmit the plague to people, the disease has become incredibly rare in the United States and Europe since its 15th-century breakout.

However, rural parts of the United States, such as southern Oregon, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado, still see an uptick in instances.

This year in February, one unlucky Oregon cat owner contracted the virus when her feline friend tested positive.

It was reported that the patient responded well to the antibiotic treatment.

Health experts stated that other community members posed “little risk” at the time.

However, a man’s death from the condition was revealed the following month by health officials in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

Officials from Pueblo County’s health department stress the need to clean up trash surrounding homes and parks to remove possible rodent habitats.

People should also apply insect repellent with DEET to protect themselves from flea bites if they must handle dead animals, and they should avoid touching the animals themselves if at all possible.

People in rural areas of Africa, who are physically closer to the plague-carrying animals, have been the primary victims of the epidemic in the last several decades.

Pneumonia, chills, severe headaches and muscular pains, nausea, and vomiting are all symptoms that plague patients may have, which might mimic those of the flu.

Most infected people will die within a week if the condition is not treated, even though modern medicine makes it easy to treat.