A man in his 20s has died of bubonic plague in New Mexico, state health authorities confirmed Friday.
His death came only a few days after another case of plague, in the man in his 60s, this year the first was diagnosed in the state.
The two men lived more than a hundred miles apart, so it is unlikely the cases are linked, but health officials are now investigating the home and family of the young man who died of the rare infection.
It comes after a squirrel in neighboring Colorado tested positive for Yesinia Pestis bacterium, which causes bubonic plague, and reports of a potential outbreak in China.
A New Mexico man in his 20s is the first person to die of the plague in the U.S. this year after contracting Yesinia Pestis bacteria (pictured, in red file)
Chinese officials have sealed a city and a village in the nation’s Inner Mongolia region following reports of bubonic plague deaths this year.
It is the same disease that killed about 50 million people in the 14th century – including about 60 percent of Europe’s population – and earned the name ‘Black Death’.
These days, cases of bubonic plague are very rare, but still very fatal.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are between 1,000 and 2,000 cases of plague worldwide each year.
Between 30 and 100 percent of those cases prove fatal, according to the WHO.
In the US, there are only seven cases of plague in a typical year. Only about eight to 10 percent of Americans who catch plague typically die, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates.
Yesinia Pestis bacteria primarily affect animals, mostly rodents.
If those rodents are bitten by fleas, the bugs can spread it to their next hosts, including other animals and humans.
People can usually carry the plague for about two to six days without symptoms if they are bitten by an infected flower.
What happens next depends on whether the person has bubonic plague – the species responsible for most of the deaths from Black Death, and is marked by highly swollen, bulbous lymph nodes often in the abdomen, armpit or neck – septicemic plague , as a pneumonic plague.
The man who died in New Mexico had the septicemic form.
In that case, symptoms may appear more quickly – within one to three days – if they have infected drops inhaled from the cough or sneeze of someone who has the plague.
Most patients present first with fever and fever and may become extremely weak.
Many will then develop abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting and some people will bleed from their mouth, nose or rectum. Blood may be visible on the skin.
If the infection is bad enough, it can poison the bloodstream, leading to septic shock and potentially gangrene that makes the extremities black when the tissue dies.
The same can happen to organs if they are overgrown with the bacteria, leading to multiple organ failure and death.
Treatment with antibiotics may improve the chance of survival, but it should start working quickly. Patients decrease rapidly, with some dying within 24 hours of their first symptoms.
Experts advise that the best thing to do about plague is to take every possible measure to not get it.
The New Mexico Department of Health warns that pets allowed to roam freely outside – especially if they can venture into wildlife areas – are a primary source of infection, and advised keeping animals indoors as much as possible.
The young man’s death is the first deadly plague reported in New Mexico since 2015, and likely in the U.S. this year.
Although very rare in North America, there have been cases. mostly found in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.
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