“Very Sick” Pet Cat Gave Oregon Resident Case of Bubonic Plague
Freeman writes:
An Oregon resident contracted bubonic plague from their "very sick" pet cat, marking the first time since 2015 that someone in the state has been stricken with the Black Death bacterium, according to local health officials.
Plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, circulates cryptically in the US in various types of rodents and their fleas. It causes an average of seven human cases a year, with a range of 1 to 17, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cases tend to cluster in two regions, the CDC notes: a hotspot that spans northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado, and another region spanning California, far western Nevada, and southern Oregon.
The new case in Oregon occurred in the central county of Deschutes. It was fortunately caught early before the infection developed into a more severe, systemic bloodstream infection (septicemic plague).
[...] It's unclear how or why the cat became infected. But cats are particularly susceptible to plague and are considered a common source of infection in the US. The animals, when left to roam outdoors, can pick up infections from fleas as well as killing and eating infected rodents. Though dogs can also pick up the infection from fleas or other animals, they are less likely to develop clinical illness, according to the CDC.
[...] According to the CDC, there were 496 plague cases in the US between 1970 and 2020. And between 2000 and 2020, the CDC counted 14 deaths.
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