Health officials in Colorado are looking into a possible case of the plague in a person. The plague is a rare bacterial illness that is famous for killing tens of millions of people in Europe in the 1400s. Antibiotics make it easy to treat now.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that seven people get the plague every year in the U.S. In February, Oregon officials reported one person who got the plague from their sick cat.
Are you shocked that the plague is still going around? Read this to learn more.
What is the plague?
More often than not, the bacterial illness is spread by rodents like prairie dogs and rats. This is called the bubonic plague.
There are two other types of plague: pneumonic plague, which infects the lungs, and septicemic plague, which affects the whole body.
People who have bubonic plague often have painfully swollen lymph nodes in their groin, shoulder, and neck. These are called buboes. If you don’t treat it, it will often spread and turn into the other two types of plague.
The Cleveland Clinic says that people who have the plague may also get headaches, pain in the belly, legs, and arms, and a sudden high fever with chills.
How do you get the plague?
The bacteria is spread by the bites of infected fleas, which come from rodents, dogs, and people.
People can also get the plague from touching body fluids that are infected, so health professionals say to be extra careful when handling sick or dead animals. The plague can also be spread by the drops that a person with pneumonic plague breathes out.
Lisa Morici, a microbiologist and immunologist at Tulane University School of Medicine, said that pneumonic plague is the most dangerous and easiest to spread. If it is not treated, it kills almost all of its victims.
Where can you find the plague?
The CDC says that most cases happen in rural parts of northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, southern Colorado, California, southern Oregon, and far western Nevada in the United States.
The World Health Organization says that the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru are the places where plague is most common in the world.
How do you get rid of the plague?
The plague was never completely wiped out, but we are better at stopping it from spreading and healing people who have it.
Antibiotics can cure the plague if they are given early on. To avoid dying from the plague, it’s important to see a doctor quickly.
And, as the saying goes, it’s better to avoid problems than to fix them.
Getting rid of trash and other things that rats might be interested in around the house and making sure pets are up to date on flea treatments can both lower the risk of getting an infection. When you go shooting, camping or spend any other time outside, the CDC says to use a bug spray with DEET to keep fleas and other pests that spread disease away.
Is there a vaccine?
Yes, but the World Health Organization only suggests it for people who are very likely to get sick, like lab and health care workers. In the U.S., there is no protection against the plague.
Morici said that more study is needed because the vaccines used in other parts of the world only protect against the bubonic form of plague and not the pneumonic form.
She said that making a study for a plague vaccine would be hard from an ethical and practical point of view.
“There’s not a huge market for a plague vaccine right now,” Morici said. “The bubonic form is pretty easy to treat with antibiotics, and the disease is also pretty rare—there aren’t tens of thousands of cases of it every year.”
