Bubonic Plague In Arizona: Fleas tested positive for infamous infectious disease responsible for killing millions of Europeans in Middle Ages

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Plague is an infectious disease infamous for killing millions of Europeans in the Middle Ages.

Infected fleas have been found on prairie dogs in two Arizona counties – Navajo County one week after Coconino County.

A popular hiking area near Flagstaff, Arizona, has become ground zero of a deadly plague outbreak among prairie dogs. Fleas test positive for deadly Yersinia Pestis bacteria, the bacteria that causes bubonic plague, following death of prairie dog.

Coconino County officials discovered fleas carrying the plague in the Red Lake area and in the Doney Park area last week.

On August 12, 2017, Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the Bubonic plague, was also collected from dead prairie dogs near the town of Taylor in Navajo County.

Residents have been notified and the situation is being monitored in both counties. The bubonic plague can be spread to humans through flea bites or through direct contact with an infected animal.

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Fleas test positive for bubonic plague in Arizona in August 2017.

It’s not the first time that Arizona is host of plague outbreaks among prairie dogs. In 2015 that another outbreak of the plague took place among prairie dogs in Flagstaff during which 15 humans had been infected with the Bubonic plague.

Officials believe the plague is spreading as they have observed the sudden death of a large number of prairie dogs and rodents at the same time.

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1 Comment

  1. Yersinia pestis, plague, has been endemic in the U.S. southwest for as long as we humans have known.
    It is in the rat/rodent fleas. Yearly there are cases in the south west. New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California.
    The drug of choice is Doxycycline 100 mg every 12 for 15 days. The hall mark is many, many enlarged lymph nodes. It is very difficult, maybe not even possible to transfer bubonic plague from one human to another. However, Pneumonic plague, pneumonia, can be passed with breathing in the air of a cough from a person with Pneumonic plague and one can die in 4 hours. Though it is endemic, it is still rare. If a person gets bubonic plague, and gets septic, and gets pneumonia, breathing in the air from that person, will give you the pneumonic plague, and only hours to live. It is a deadly form of the disease and very contagious.

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