In the United States, a rare case of bubonic plague was found in Oregon – Liberation

Also known as the “Black Death,” the bubonic plague, which wiped out more than a third of the European continent’s inhabitants in the 14th century, may just be a distant memory recorded in the history books. However, the disease remains endemic in the western United States, from New Mexico to Oregon via California, as was reminded by a case discovered last week in Oregon northwest of the country.

The affected patient lives in rural Deschutes County in the central part of the state. Possibly infected by his cat, he is currently undergoing treatment. When the case was announced last week, county health officer Dr. Richard Fawcett was reassuring, explaining that “All close contacts of the resident and their pets have been notified and given medication to prevent illness.”

Fatal in 30 to 100% of cases

Rare in developed countries, plague can now be treated but remains potentially dangerous. Without antibiotic treatment, the case fatality rate for bubonic plague, which is characterized by painful swelling of the lymph nodes known as “buboes,” ranges from 30 to 60 percent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). According to health officials, plague symptoms in humans appear up to eight days after exposure to an infected animal or flea. These may include fever, nausea, restlessness, chills, and muscle aches.

If not diagnosed in time, bubonic plague can progress to septicemic plague (blood stream infection) or pneumonic plague. These two forms of pathology are more serious. Highly contagious, pneumonic plague can trigger severe epidemics and is almost always fatal if left untreated. “Fortunately, this case was identified and treated at an early stage of the disease, posing little risk to the community.” Deschutes County health officials confirmed in a press release. The latter also clarified that“No other cases of plague appeared during the investigation.”

According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), an average of seven cases of plague are reported in humans each year in the United States, the lead federal health agency. In the state of Oregon, home to more than 4.2 million people, the last case of bubonic plague was reported in 2015.

A re-emerging disease

Between 1990 and 2020, 50,000 human cases of plague were reported to WHO by 26 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. China, Peru and the Democratic Republic of Congo are particularly affected. Since the outbreak in 2016, after more than sixty years without a single reported case, Madagascar now has the highest human cases of plague in the world, with 250 to 500 patients per year, according to the Pasteur Institute.

Epidemics of the plague, the world’s best-known pathogen, are characterized by disappearing for several years before reappearing in epidemic form. India had believed it had eradicated the disease since the 1960s when an outbreak of pneumonic plague broke out in 1994, killing about fifty victims. More recently, the plague reappeared in Libya in 2009 and in Russia in 2013 after disappearing for decades. The surge led the WHO to classify the disease as re-emerging in 2020. Although hit hard in the Middle Ages, Europe seems to have been spared, with no recent cases reported. In France, the last cases of bubonic plague date back to 1945 in Corsica.