-
May 10, 2007 11:59 pm US/Mountain
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
Why is there an outbreak of the plague?
by Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ―
With animals now being found dead of the plague in different parts of the Front Range, the question about where it came from is a big one. The fact of the matter is, it's been around for a long time.
The plague arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, probably carried by rats on ships.
"Into California, and then it spread eastward," said Diane Milholin, who is vector control coordinator for Denver's Animal Control. "Up to this point it's spread as far as the Mississippi River. It's in our wild rodent population all the time. The rock squirrels, the ground squirrels, the voles, the deer mice, it spills over into the prairie dogs, the tree squirrels, and rabbits periodically."
Animals that share dens like squirrels can easily share the fleas that carry the plague. There is no particular flea that carries the bacteria. They all have the ability to transmit it.
"A flea bites a warm blooded mammal and taking up that blood meal, it injects some of its bacteria," Milholin said.
The plague caused the worst pandemic in history in the mid-1300s. It's believed to have started in Asia. It then swept into Europe killing a third to over a half of Europe's population and eventually earning the title, "The Black Death." At the time, no one knew it was carried by fleas and rats. It continued to pop up in significant outbreaks for hundreds of years.
There are still outbreaks in Colorado today. Entire prairie dog colonies are sometimes wiped out. Prairie dogs, like squirrels, live close together. Fleas and disease are easily shared when the warm weather returns like it has this month.
"If that animal dies, once that body temperature starts to drop, that flea's going to leave that host," Milholin said.
The best way to stay away from the plague is to keep your pets away from
wildlife. Cats seem to be more susceptible than dogs. There have been cases in Colorado of transmission from cats to humans.
The disease cannot be transmitted until its later stages when it gets into the lungs. That's when a sneeze, from an infected cat, can make transmission possible. The plague is no longer a death sentence in humans if treated in time.
"Since they've been keeping track, I think we've had 58 cases of human plague in Colorado since the early 50s," Milholin said.
The last death was a man from Pueblo County in 2004 who had been skinning rabbits in Park County. The last human to human transmission in Colorado was in 1924.
When this year's plague fades, it will not go away. It's likely to be back again. Milholin said there's really no chance that the plague will ever be eradicated from Colorado or the United States.
Additional Resources
(© MMVII CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)