A Utah resident is the fourth recorded mortality for 2015 in the United States due to plague. The death of the elderly patient is said to have occurred earlier in August, as announced by the officials of the Utah Department of Health on Thursday, Aug. 27. The fatality is the first person to have been given the diagnosis of plague in the said Western state since 2009.
Officials from the department did not disclose the identity of the patient; however, they said that that person may have acquired the plague either from a flea or through contact with a dead animal. According to the officials, the bacteria that bring up the disease naturally appear in the western part of the U.S.
The health authorities of the department believe that the patient did not travel to other places, where the plague is prevalent; nonetheless, they said that the investigation of the case will continue.
The plague, which is a rare disease, initially comes from rodents such as rats, squirrels, rabbits and ferrets and is spread through fleas. According to officials, the disease may also be carried by prairie dogs, such as those found in Utah. In July 2015, officials from health and wildlife agencies have confirmed that a bubonic plague outbreak occurred, killing about 60-80 prairie dogs in an eastern Utah area.
Since April 1, 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported 12 cases of human victims of the plague across seven states. Four mortalities have been recorded, including the latest one from Utah. The other three cases were aged 16, 52 and 79. The state with the most number of plague cases for 2015 is Colorado with four, followed by New Mexico and Arizona with two each, then Utah, California, Oregon and Georgia with one each. The patients recorded in California and Georgia were said to have been exposed to infected fleas at Yosemite National Park.
The CDC states that about 1-17 cases have been recorded across the nation each year since 2000. However, deaths are rare, with only two per year reported in the last 15 years. Nonetheless, the four cases of deaths recorded for 2015 is not a cause for alarm, says Dr. Paul Mead from the CDC. "Yes, it's twice as many, but when you're dealing with small numbers, you have that kind of variation."
In Utah, although the last case of human plague was recorded in 2009, fatalities have not been reported in the last 35 years until now, said Charla Haley, a spokesperson from the state's health department.
Photo: Kamal Hamid | Flickr
