Texas resident likely exposed to plague in New Mexico

Corpus Christi Caller-Times/AP ^ | February 21, 2006

[SwinneySwitch]

SANTA FE, N.M.- A Texas resident who has been hospitalized with plague was likely exposed to the disease while hunting and skinning rabbits last week on a Lea County ranch, the New Mexico Department of Health announced Tuesday.

Initial tests conducted by the Texas health department were positive for plague. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will conduct more tests in Fort Collins, Colo.

"It is unusual to have a human case of plague in southeastern New Mexico," said Dr. Paul Ettestad, New Mexico's public health veterinarian. "The last record we have of a human case in Lea County was in January 1951."

New Mexico officials would not identify the Texan.

Plague cases are more likely in the summer, but Ettestad said winter cases do occur and are often associated with direct contact with infected animals, such as skinning rabbits.

Plague is generally transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. The disease can also be transmitted by direct contact with infected rodents and pets.

Most people become ill two to seven days after being infected. Symptoms include fever, swollen lymph nodes, chills and sometimes headache, vomiting and diarrhea.

With prompt diagnosis and appropriate treatment, the fatality rate in people and pets can be greatly reduced.

Ettestad suggested that hunters wear rubber or latex gloves while skinning and field dressing game and promptly wash their hands or use alcohol-based hand cleaners.

In 2005, there were four human cases of plague in New Mexico _ three in Santa Fe County and one in Bernalillo County. The last plague fatality in New Mexico was in 1994 in a child from Rio Arriba County.

[SwinneySwitch]

"Plague cases are more likely in the summer, but Ettestad said winter cases do occur and are often associated with direct contact with infected animals, such as skinning rabbits."

It's been a warm January.

[NerdDad]

That's your neck of the woods and my old stompin grounds. Better be careful with them wabbits.

Interesting that they don't even identify the hospital.

[NerdDad]

I could throw a rock from my childhood Texas home into Lea County NM.

[tiki]

Wasn't there a Hantavirus case last week too?

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Nasty pestilence...thank goodness it can be successfully treated with modern antibiotics.

Europeans back in the 14th century weren't so lucky. Half of them died, and in many cases, whole villages were wiped out...

[SwinneySwitch]

Wasn't there a Hantavirus case last week too?

1 in NM and 2 fatalities in AZ.