Main image via ABC News , CNN
The bubonic plague recently made a comeback after a confirmed case was detected in Inner Mongolia, China and now the disease has surfaced in Colorado.
The first case of the bubonic plague in Colorado was confirmed after a squirrel was tested positive in the town of Morrison.
The news release from the Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) department said, “the squirrel is the first case of plague in the county this year.”
“Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, and can be contracted by humans and household animals if proper precautions are not taken.”
Two bubonic plague cases were also recently confirmed in Mongolia after two brothers both ate marmot meat.
Russian officials are also patrolling around the borders of the Altai region to ban people from hunting marmots to avoid the spread of the plague that’s highly infectious.
The bubonic plague is also known as the “Black Death” and can be that can be found in small mammals and their fleas, which killed half of Europe’s population and recorded an estimate of 75 to 200 million deaths worldwide in the 1300s.
And while the plague is serious and can be fatal, it’s largely treatable with the availability of antibiotics now, with 584 deaths reported from 2010 to 2015 from the rare disease.
The bubonic plague can, in fact, turn into a pneumonic plague where the bacteria spreads to the lungs and cause pneumonia.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 1,000 to 2,000 people get the plague every year and it’s endemic in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Peru.
The WHO has categorized it as a re-emerging disease but the risk of getting the plague is extremely low as long as precautions are taken!
Info via CNN
Filled Under :
*We reserve the right to delete comments that contain inappropriate content.