A person in California has fall sick with the plague , marking the first time the disease has been fleck in the state for five years .
The El Dorado County Department of Health and Human Servicesannounced on Mondaythat a person from South Lake Tahoe had test positive for the pestilence . They have have aesculapian attention and are now recovering at home plate .
It ’s unclear how the soul became infected , but wellness officials say it ’s probable they were bitten by an infected flea while walking their dog along the Truckee River Corridor north of Highway 50 or the Tahoe Keys orbit in South Lake Tahoe .
Despite its repute , the pestis is now well treatable with antibiotics if caught early . However , it ’s still a concern in many percentage of the humans , not excluding North America . TheUS Centers for Disease Control and Preventionhas recorded just over 1,000 confirmed or likely human plague case in the US between 1900 and 2012 .
" Plague is naturally present in many parts of California , let in higher altitude areas of El Dorado County , ” Dr Nancy Williams , El Dorado County Public Health Officer , said in thestatement . “ It ’s important that individuals take precaution for themselves and their pets when out of doors , especially while walk , hiking and/or bivouacking in areas where wild rodents are present . Human cases of plague are extremely rare but can be very serious . ”
The plague is due to the bacteriaYersinia pestis . It ’s perhaps well love as the diseasesuspectedof make the “ Black Death ” pandemic that killed between 75 and 200 million people across Eurasia and North Africa in the 1300s .
The disease is a peculiarly nasty character . A work in 2005found theY. pestiseffectively disable share of the immune scheme of its legion by put in toxin into defense cellphone that scope out likely pathogen , allow the bacteria to lie down undetected and run riot .
“ Yersinia pestisis the cruddy thing alive,“saidProfessor Olaf Schneewind , one of the authors of the 2005 survey and prof and chairman of microbiology at the University of Chicago . “ It ’s the most virulent bacterial organism fuck to mankind . ”
People infected with the disease develop an influenza - like illness ask fever , chills , aches , weakness , vomiting , and nausea . The disease comes in a number of forms . Bubonic pestilence , the most common var. of the disease , causes swollen and painful lymph nodes but is n’t associated with human - to - homo transmission . Pneumonic pest , however , affects the respiratory system and can be spread from human to human via airborne particles throw out from coughs and splutters . There ’s another form known as Septicemic plague that result in the skin turn a blackish - majestic coloration .
Bubonic plague is typically spread by fleas and the modest mammals , notably rodents , that they latch onto . In light of the late instance , health authority say they ’re continuing tomonitor rodent populations for pestilence activity in California . They also instructed people to not feed squirrels , chipmunk , or other furious rodents and maintain their distance from any dead animals .
