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Medicine

Northern Arizona Resident Dies From Plague (cnn.com) 65

Posted by EditorDavid from the rare-diseases dept.
It killed tens of millions of people in 14th century Europe," CNN reports, though "today, it's easily treated with antibiotics."

And yet "A resident of northern Arizona has died from pneumonic plague, health officials said Friday." Plague is rare to humans, with on average about seven cases reported annually in the U.S., most of them in the western states, according to federal health officials. The death in Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, was the first recorded death from pneumonic plague since 2007, local officials said... The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats. There are two other forms: septicemic plague that spreads through the whole body, and pneumonic plague that infects the lungs. Pneumonic plague is the most deadly and easiest to spread.

Northern Arizona Resident Dies From Plague More | Reply

Northern Arizona Resident Dies From Plague

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  • Locusts, Plague, Orange-Anti-Christ

    • Ill save the sock puppets here some time....Wrong! Joe Biden and the illegals obviously brought the plague.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        **laughs in first world country with socialized healthcare**

        The US isn't unique however among other politically corrupt developing 3rd world countries.

    • I'm sorry. I've seen no locusts locally yet. Please point them out as I'm going fishing tomorrow and locusts are better bait than worms. Cheaper as well.

  • Dum (Score:3)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Saturday July 12, 2025 @03:56PM (#65515696)
    Now people are going to start saying that the bubonic plague vaccine doesn't work.

    • Re:Dum (Score:5, Funny)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Saturday July 12, 2025 @04:23PM (#65515754) Journal

      Hey, we're just "Making America Great Again" one 18th century disease at a time.

      • I'm not a fan of Trump, but this - a person or two dying of plague in the American Southwest - happens every few years. It's nothing new.

        Also vaccines are irrelevant since this is a bacterium.

        • Thank you captain pedantic.

        • How are vaccines irrelevant because it's a bacteria? The plague doesn't have vaccines, but other bacteria do, such as tetanus.

          • Oh, you're right - they're not nearly as common but they do exist.

            Also another big one most of us have had - tuberculosis.

          • The tetanus vaccine is against the poison that the bacterium produces, not the bacterium itself.

          • Usually to be effective, vaccines for bacterial diseases inactivate important bacterial toxins. They're less successful when the bacteria kill via fulminating bacteremia and similar.

        • Apparently the last American death from pneumonic plague was during the Bush administration. Hmmmm!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Also vaccines are irrelevant since this is a bacterium.

          Plague has a vaccine available. It's just not commonly given because so few cases of it actually occur every year that vaccinating everyone is pointless as it's relatively rare, easily treatable so why burden people with yet another shot for something they aren't likely to get. But it exists and can be given to hot spots of plague outbreaks.

          Plague is also highly responsive to antibiotics which is why deaths are relatively rare as well - you get sick, yo

  • Wikpedia for your connvenience (Score:5, Informative)

    by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Saturday July 12, 2025 @03:59PM (#65515706)

    During 1995, plague was confirmed in the United States from nine western states.[70] Currently, five to 15 people in the United States are estimated to catch the disease each year — typically in western states. The reservoir is thought to be mice.[71][72] In the U.S., about half of all fatal cases of plague since 1970 have occurred in New Mexico. There were two plague deaths in the state in 2006, the first fatalities in 12 years.[73] In New Mexico, four people were diagnosed with the plague in 2015; one died. In 2016, four were diagnosed and all were treated with success. Three others were diagnosed by late June in 2017. Vegetation such as pinyon and juniper trees are thought to support rodents such as the prairie dog and rock squirrel, with their fleas, according to Paul Ettestad of the New Mexico public health department.[74] As well, pets can bring back fleas from dead rodents, he said. The CDC indicates that over the past century, plague in the U.S. has been most common in the areas of northern New Mexico, northwestern Arizona and southern Colorado.[75] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Good news bad news time (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday July 12, 2025 @04:00PM (#65515718)
    So the good news is it is not that uncommon for the plague to be found. So we don't have to panic immediately..

    The bad news is that Robert f Kennedy Jr and Christi Noem are going to be in charge of any sort of containment response, so actually we do need to panic immediately.

    In order to get the Yes Man Trump wanted and that the heritage foundation wanted they had to put completely incompetent buffoons in charge of literally everything that protects you.

    For some of us that just means we're on our own and a lot of us are patting ourselves on the back thinking that's okay.

    But when it comes to a literal plague it doesn't work like that. The plague doesn't care that you own a house and live in a nice suburb that isn't in a flood plain. This is one of those cases where you can't have a no peeing section in your pool. Also Chesterton's fence.

    • Re:Good news bad news time (Score:5, Informative)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday July 12, 2025 @04:09PM (#65515734)

      The bad news is that Robert f Kennedy Jr and Christi Noem are going to be in charge of any sort of containment response,

      The proper containment response appears to be: administer antibiotics when a case is found. Since there is no vaccine and prophylactic treatment with antibiotics is an absolute no-no (breeds resistant strains of bacteria).

      In other words, the proper response is to do nothing different. Having hissy fits about Kennedy and Noem is also counter-indicated.

      • There is a vaccine for the bubonic plague, but in modern times it's generally only given to researchers who are studying the disease.

      • There used to be a plague vaccine, but apparently not anymore.

        I'm not sure if it worked on the pneumonic version. That hits so fast your immune system doesn't really have time to ramp up.

      • I'm not going to debate whether you're right or wrong but I'm going to debate is whether that will be done and whether it will be done quickly?

        Containment requires a rapid response and we have already seen that this administration isn't capable of that.

        The politically motivated firings alone are basically stopping their response to disasters. That's before we take into account just the raw incompetence.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )

        Since there is no vaccine

        There were several vaccines, but given the disease's rarity they are not used anymore.

      • In other words, the proper response is to do nothing different.

        Correct.

        Having hissy fits about Kennedy and Noem is also counter-indicated.

        Kennedy and Noem are disruptive. You say you want nothing different. Your description of a response to this disruption as a "hissy fit" runs counter to your narrative. Pick one or the other going forwards if you want to be taken seriously, thanks.

    • Everyone knows the best response to an epidemic is to move your family onto your yacht - no doubt the doctors will be prescribing this.

      • Be sure to install rat guards on the hawsers. If you spot a rat on board, you can reportedly get it to leave by sinking the vessel.

    • The last such death was during the Bush years! Surely the events must be related somehow!!!! !

    • Government mandated plague parties anyone? Your immune system just needs to be trained!

  • This sounds an awful lot like something you'd find in India [youtube.com].

    Side note, someone I used to work with mentioned she was retiring to Arizona. I told her, "Ahh. Hantavirus". She didn't know what that meant so I explained.

    So not only can you die from an infection transmitted by fleas, you can die from the plague if you live in Arizona. Sounds like a great place.

  • No correlation with the cretin that Trump made secretary for health, I am sure.

  • 1. Remain in basement.
    2. Run conky to give you the weather if you don't have a window in your mom's basement.
    3. Power up the time traveler and set it to 14th.century Europe. You can dodge pneumonic plague but watch them burn the corpses of bubonic plague

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