Scary Stuff! Wear plastic gloves when discarding dead wildlife!
Video: http://www.cnn com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/health/2012/06/15/dnt-oregon-plague-death.ktvz http://www.ctv ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120615/oregon-black-plague-120615/ CTVNews.ca Staff Date: Friday Jun. 15, 2012 2:03 PM ET Thought the plague was a relic of the Middle Ages? Think again.A man in Oregon is in critical condition after contracting the illness long known as the Black Death.The man, in his 50s, is thought to have picked up the infection earlier this month while trying to remove a dead mouse from the mouth of a stray cat. Within a couple of days, he developed a high fever and nausea and headed to hospital. Doctors there diagnosed him with septicemic plague -- the kind of plague that spreads in the blood. He was reported on Thursday to be in critical condition. While many may think the plague was eradicated centuries ago, in fact, the bacterium that causes it, Yersinia pestis, still circulates among the fleas that live on rodents and other animals.Oregon has about one human case a year, while the U.S. as a whole records an average of 11 cases a year, mostly in the South.Human cases of plague are very rare in Canada, says the Public Health Agency of Canada. The last case was reported in 1939. The plague can develop into three forms: bubonic plague, which swells lymph nodes across the body; septicemic plague; and pneumonic plague, which affects the lungs.The illness is treatable with antibiotics, but only if treatment is given quickly. The longer patients wait for treatment after symptoms begin, the worse their outcome. It's not clear whether the cat or the mouse in this incident was infected. While rodents are often carriers, the stray cat later become ill and died. Its body has been sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.While local health officials didn't identify the man, Karen Yeargain, the communicable disease coordinator for Crook County, said the man lives in rural area outside the city of Prineville.More than a dozen people who were in contact with the sick man have been notified and are receiving preventive antibiotics. A plague vaccine exists but is no longer sold to the public. It's typically offered to military personnel or animal handlers working in areas where the plague is more common. Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120615/oregon-black-plague-120615/#ixzz1xtUt3QW1
