(RepublicanDaily.org) – The deadly bubonic plague has reared its ugly head in the U.S. again after health officials in Oregon reported that a resident had contracted the disease.
The case is the first infection of the bubonic plague the state has seen since 2015. Health officials say that the patient likely got the disease from a symptomatic pet cat. As of press time, no other cases in Oregon or other places in the U.S. have been reported. Family members and other people who have been in close contact the individual and the animal have been contacted and given medication to prevent them from being infected, Deschutes County Health Officer Dr. Richard Fawcett said.
Officials did not identify the patient.
A press release from the Deschutes County Health Office stated that it was fortunate that the disease was caught early and the patient immediately received treatment, minimizing any risk to the community, which is located in a more rural part of the Beaver State.
Cases of the bubonic plague have popped up all over the U.S. in recent years, with the latest case discovered in 2020 when a California resident from the South Lake Tahoe area contracted the disease. In 2015, two people from Colorado succumbed to the illness.
The bubonic plague is the cause of what history books call the Black Death, which caused tens of millions of people to die in the Middle Ages. The bacteria that causes the disease, Yersinia pestis, is commonly found in fleas that attach themselves to animals like rats and mice. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have only been 496 recorded cases of the bubonic plague between 1970 and 2020, as health technologies and modern medicine have now developed antibiotic treatments that have proven to be very effective in fighting the illness, especially if these are administered early on.
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