Oregon Man Contracts Bubonic Plague

A middle-aged man in Oregon is in critical condition after being bitten by a stray cat and contracting the plague, a rare and fatal (but treatable) disease that killed roughly 33% of the population of Europe in the 1300s. 

The man, who was bitten on June 2 while trying to remove a dead mouse from a stray cat’s mouth, is reported to have contracted a fever several days later and began displaying classic signs of both the bubonic and septic forms of the disease.  

The plague, caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium, comes in 3 forms: bubonic (swelling of the lymph nodes throughout the body), septicaemic (affecting the bloodstream) and pneumonic (affecting the lungs).

“People usually get plague from being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an infected animal,” explains the CDC’s Plague section. “Today, modern antibiotics are effective against plague, but if an infected person is not treated promptly, the disease is likely to cause illness or death.”

On average, 11 cases of the plague are reported each year, mostly found in New Mexico.  Globally, the World Health Organization reports 1000 to 3000 cases of plague each year.

-Michael Potts