Man in NY Hospital has Bubonic Plague

Fox News | 11/6/2002 | Heff

[Heff]

Nothing to worry about huh?

[TexKat]

Who is he, and where did he come from? Travelling!!!

[Heff]

Not sure...thats all I heard of the report...sorry.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Bubonic Plague killed 1/4 of the earths population- nothing to worry about.

It's in one of the most populous cities in the world- nothing to worry about.

The man was traveling and his companion has it- nothing to worry about.

Move along.............

[CJ Wolf]

Did he get it drinking from a wooded stream in North Carolina?????????

[fight_truth_decay]

Bubonic Plague A contagious, often fatal epidemic disease caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis, transmitted from person to person or by the bite of fleas from an infected host, especially a rat, and characterized by chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and the formation of buboes. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Bacteria invade lymph nodes, which swell and are called Buboes

Blood vessels break, causing internal bleeding

Dried blood under the skin turns black, hence the name, "Black Death"

Spread is slow from person-to-person

Mortality is very high (up to 75%) in untreated cases

Early treatment with antibiotics is very effective

[Husker24]

Thats what I was thinking, probably the same wooded stream that guy got Anthrax from, they really should do something about that...lol

[Tennessee_Bob]

Introduction: Plague is an infectious disease of animals and humans caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis.

People usually get plague from being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an infected animal. Millions of people in Europe died from plague in the Middle Ages, when human homes and places of work were inhabited by flea-infested rats. Today, modern antibiotics are effective against plague, but if an infected person is not treated promptly, the disease is likely to cause illness or death.

Risk: Wild rodents in certain areas around the world are infected with plague. Outbreaks in people still occur in rural communities or in cities. They are usually associated with infected rats and rat fleas that live in the home. In the United States, the last urban plague epidemic occurred in Los Angeles in 1924-25. Since then, human plague in the United States has occurred as mostly scattered cases in rural areas (an average of 10 to 15 persons each year). Globally, the World Health Organization reports 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year. In North America, plague is found in certain animals and their fleas from the Pacific Coast to the Great Plains, and from southwestern Canada to Mexico. Most human cases in the United States occur in two regions: 1) northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado; and 2) California, southern Oregon, and far western Nevada. Plague also exists in Africa, Asia, and South America (see map).

[TexKat]

Also posted here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/784002/posts

Mexican couple on vacation.

[Libertina]

Natural huh? The only natural thing here is Greta being a twit.

[JZoback]

Actually, this is nothing to worry about. Bubonic Plague occurs a lot more than you think.

Bubonic Plague did not kill 1/4 of the worlds population, pneumonic plague actually did.

Very similar diseases, pneumonic is air borne, highly contagious. Caused the black death.

Bubonic is transmitted by fleas.

[SamAdams76]

You still out there?

[Lizavetta]

On a lighter note, I'd say that the Boobonic Plague has been alive in well in America...ask all the losing Democrats who got a visit from Captain Thud.

[Pharmboy]

From The Merck Manual:

PLAGUE
(Bubonic Plague; Pestis; Black Death)
An acute, severe infection appearing most commonly in a bubonic or pneumonic form, caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis.

Etiology and Epidemiology
Yersinia pestis (formerly Pasteurella pestis) is a short bacillus that often shows bipolar staining (especially with Giemsa stain) and may resemble safety pins.

Plague occurs primarily in wild rodents (eg, rats, mice, squirrels, prairie dogs); it may be acute, subacute, or chronic, and urban (mainly murine) or sylvatic. Massive human epidemics have occurred (eg, the Black Death of the Middle Ages); more recently, plague has occurred sporadically or in limited outbreaks. In the USA, > 90% of human plague occurs in the southwestern states, especially New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado. Bubonic plague is the most common form.

Plague is transmitted from rodent to humans by the bite of an infected flea vector. Human-to-human transmission occurs by inhaling droplet nuclei through the cough of patients with bubonic or septicemic plague who have pulmonary lesions (primary pneumonic plague). In endemic areas in the USA, a number of cases have been associated with household pets, especially cats. Transmission from cats can be by bite, or, if the cat has pneumonic plague, by inhalation of infected droplets.

Symptoms and Signs
In bubonic plague, the incubation period is usually 2 to 5 days but varies from a few hours to 12 days. Onset is abrupt and often associated with chills; the temperature rises to 39.5 to 41° C (103 to 106° F). The pulse may be rapid and thready; hypotension may occur. Enlarged lymph nodes (buboes) appear with or shortly before the fever. The femoral or inguinal lymph nodes are most commonly involved (50%), followed by axillary (22%), cervical (10%), or multiple (13%) nodes. Typically, the nodes are extremely tender and firm, surrounded by considerable edema; they may suppurate in the 2nd wk. The overlying skin is smooth and reddened but often not warm. A primary cutaneous lesion, varying from a small vesicle with slight local lymphangitis to an eschar, occasionally appears at the bite. The patient may be restless, delirious, confused, and uncoordinated. The liver and spleen may be palpable. The WBC count is usually 10,000 to 20,000/µL with a predominance of immature and mature neutrophils. The nodes may suppurate in the 2nd wk.

Primary pneumonic plague has a 2- to 3-day incubation period, followed by abrupt onset of high fever, chills, tachycardia, and headache, often severe. Cough, not prominent initially, develops within 20 to 24 h; sputum is mucoid at first, rapidly shows blood specks, and then becomes uniformly pink or bright red (resembling raspberry syrup) and foamy. Tachypnea and dyspnea are present, but pleurisy is not. Signs of consolidation are rare, and rales may be absent. Chest x-rays show a rapidly progressing pneumonia.

Septicemic plague usually occurs with the bubonic form as an acute, fulminant illness. Abdominal pain, presumably due to mesenteric lymphadenopathy, occurs in 40% of patients. Pharyngeal plague and plague meningitis are less common forms. Pestis minor, a benign form of bubonic plague, usually occurs only in endemic areas. Lymphadenitis, fever, headache, and prostration subside within a week.

Diagnosis and Prognosis
Diagnosis is based on recovery of the organism, which may be cultured from blood, sputum, or lymph node aspirate. Because surgical drainage may disseminate the organism, needle aspiration of a bubo is preferred. Y. pestis can grow on ordinary culture media or be isolated by animal (especially guinea pig) inoculation. Serologic tests include complement fixation, passive hemagglutination, and immunofluorescent staining of a node or tissue biopsy or secretions. Prior vaccination does not exclude plague in the differential diagnosis, since clinical illness may occur in vaccinated persons.

The mortality rate for untreated patients with bubonic plague is about 60%, with most deaths occurring from sepsis in 3 to 5 days. Most untreated patients with pneumonic plague die within 48 h of symptom onset. Septicemic plague may be fatal before bubonic or pulmonary manifestations predominate.

Prophylaxis and Treatment
Rodents should be controlled and repellents used to minimize fleabites. Although immunization with standard killed plague vaccine gives protection, vaccination is not indicated for most travelers to countries reporting cases of plague. Travelers should consider prophylaxis with tetracycline 500 mg po q 6 h during exposure periods.

Immediate treatment reduces mortality to < 5%. In septicemic or pneumonic plague, treatment must begin within 24 h with streptomycin 30 mg/kg/day IM in 4 divided doses q 6 h for 7 to 10 days. Many physicians give higher initial dosages, up to 0.5 g IM q 3 h for 48 h. Tetracycline 30 mg/kg IV or po in 4 divided doses is an alternative. Gentamicin is probably also effective, although no controlled clinical trials have been conducted. For plague meningitis, chloramphenicol should be given in a loading dose of 25 mg/kg IV, followed by 50 mg/kg/day in 4 divided doses IV or po. A multidrug-resistant strain has been reported from Madagascar.

Routine aseptic precautions are adequate for patients with bubonic plague. Those with primary or secondary pneumonic plague require strict (airborne agent) isolation. All pneumonic plague contacts should be under medical surveillance; their temperatures should be taken q 4 h for 6 days. If this is not possible, tetracycline 1 g/day po for 6 days can be given; however, this can produce drug-resistant strains.

[w1andsodidwe]

Seems we get a couple cases every year or so in California. Nothing to worry about.

[TexKat]

The city and state health department were joined by the Centers for Disease Control in their investigation into how the couple contracted the disease. The state health department in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where the couple lives, tested rodents on their property this summer. Apparently many of those rodents tested positive for the Bubonic plague.

Doctors say they believe the couple was infected in their home state after sleeping in a sleeping bags that had been outdoors on their property for several weeks. Those sleeping bags are now being tested.

[sweetliberty]

New York huh? Did Hillary bite him?

[Abcdefg]

Good info. Thanks.

[fight_truth_decay]

In the years of World War II the Japanese army formed a special biological warfare division. This unit worked on developing a method to deliver the plague bacteria to the civilian population of China. They tested the effectiveness of the plague as a weapon of war first on prisoners of war, then on unsuspecting civilians. In their first tests they confined a small group of prisoners in a room with thousands of plague infested fleas. The mortality rate in these experiments were somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 percentThe next step was to release the plague on the general population of Manchuria. This was accomplished by planes flying over cities and villages and releasing large amounts of plague infested fleas over the town. This proved to be an inaccurate way of spreading the disease, and would periodically result in the infection of the air crew, so another method was devised. The infected fleas were packed into the shell of a conventional bomb and dropped, exploding just over the targeted towns. While exact figures are not know, it is known that these attacks killed many people and caused wide-spread terror in the towns. While this is the most recent example of plague being used as a bio-warfare agent it is certainly not an original idea. As discussed earlier, plague ridden bodies had been catapulted into Caffa, helping to break the city during siege. Recently there have been discussions on several news shows about bubonic plague being used as a terrorists weapon. Not only is this unnecessarily alarmist, but it would hardly be effective either. Plague would make a very ineffective biological agent. It is very hard to transmit, is easily identified by any medical professional, has a very low mortality rate, and can be treated very effectively with inexpensive antibiotics. One of the main methods of treatment for bubonic plague is the antibiotic Tetracycline, which is commonly prescribed to teenagers with severe acne. This antibiotic is readily, and cheaply available even in the most rural locations.. Source

[Wonder Warthog]

"Bubonic Plague killed 1/4 of the earths population- nothing to worry about. It's in one of the most populous cities in the world- nothing to worry about. The man was traveling and his companion has it- nothing to worry about."

That's right. There is very little to worry about. Without the additional vectors (rats and fleas), widespread transmission to others is highly unlikely. More than likely, these travelers were touring some rat and flea infested Fourth World pesthole "for fun", and contracted it there.