Michigan via Colorado: 14th plague case reported in US
Reminiscent of the human plague case in August in a Georgia patient who contracted bubonic plague while visiting California’s Yosemite National Park, local media in Chaffee County, CO report on a case in a visitor from Marquette, MI who contracted the dangerous bacterial disease while visiting the Salida area in Colorado.
Flea Image/CDC
This is the second case of human plague originating from the area this year, and the 14th human plague case of 2015 in the US.
According to the report, the patient has been identified as Alisha Plescher who was visiting family in Salida during the Gentlemen of the Road Music Festival in town on August 21st and 22nd.
Where she contracted the bacterium, Yersinia pestis, is believed to be while hiking in the Methodist Mountain Trail System.
She returned to Michigan a few days later to awake with high fever, was hospitalized demonstrating symptoms of plague. Confirmation was made based on a lymph node biopsy.
Plascher was treated and is currently experiencing a slow recovery at home.
This is the 14th human plague case this year–the other cases were reported from Arizona (two), California (one), Colorado (four), Georgia (one), New Mexico (three), Oregon (one) and Utah (one).
Four plague fatalities have been reported this year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says an average of seven human plague cases have been reported in recent years. In 2014, 10 plague cases were reported. Since 2000, the most cases reported in a single year was 17 in 2006.
Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. It is found in animals throughout the world, most commonly rats but other rodents like ground squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks, rabbits and voles. Fleas typically serve as the vector of plague. Human cases have been linked to the domestic cats and dogs that brought infected fleas into the house.
People can also get infected through direct contact with an infected animal, through inhalation and in the case of pneumonic plague, person to person.
Yersinia pestis is treatable with antibiotics if started early enough.
There are three forms of human plague; bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic.
Bubonic plague is the most common form. In this form, the bacteria enter the body through the bite of an infected flea or rodent. Here the bacteria infect the lymphatic system. After a few days to week, the person will experience fever, chills, weakness, and swollen lymph glands. These are called buboes. Untreated bubonic plague is fatal about half the time.
Robert Herriman is a microbiologist and the Editor-in-Chief of Outbreak News Today and the Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch
Follow @bactiman63
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[…] a follow-up to as report Saturday on The Global Dispatch, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services confirmed a case of bubonic plague in a […]
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