A bubonic plague death has been confirmed in the US for the first time in eight years.
The victim, of Coconino County, showed up at the Flagstaff Medical Center and died on the same day, said Northern Arizona Healthcare. Despite ‘attempts to provide life-saving resuscitation’, the patient did not recover.
It is the first recorded Black Death fatality in the county since 2007.
The victim interacted with a dead animal infected with the pneumonic plague, which causes severe lung infection, according to Coconino County Health and Human Services.
‘Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the deceased,’ stated county Board of Supervisors chair Patrice Hortsman.
‘We are keeping them in our thoughts during thoughts during this difficult time.’
No more information on the death will be released to respect the family.
The agency did say that the death is not linked to a recent report of a prairie dog die-off in Townsend Winona, which is northeast of Flagstaff, just days earlier.
Also known as Yersinia pestis, the plague is a medieval disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans through infected flea bites.
Bubonic plague cases in humans are rare. An average of seven cases are reported annually in the US and the risk of exposure to the disease is low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is an especially low risk of human-to-human transmission through respiratory droplets, with the last such incident recorded in 1921, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The disease was responsible for up to 50million deaths from 1346 to 1353.
County health officials are advising that people protect themselves from exposure to the disease by avoiding contact with wild animals and fleas and by reporting prairie dog die-offs. They should also remove trash and brush that could attract rodents, and avoid camping near rodent burrows.
Humans infected with the bubonic plague can feel symptoms one to eight days after being exposed. They include swollen lymph nodes in the armpits, limbs and groin.
A human bubonic plague case was confirmed in Colorado a year ago, and the patient recovered.
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