LOS ANGELES TIMES – The plague — aka the Black Death, aka the Great Pestilence — is rarely contracted today, yet it recently infected a South Lake Tahoe resident.
Most people associate the term “plague” with the massive and destructive event that killed 25 million Europeans in the Middle Ages, said professor John Swartzberg of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. In the 14th century, the plague killed as much as 50% of Europe’s population.
“The plague is really a specific disease that has … in our human history [reared] its ugly head and caused massive deaths,” said Swartzberg.
It may be a threat of the past, but it continues to be a very serious disease, with a small number of cases every year.
In the recent case of the South Lake Tahoe resident, it’s believed the person contracted the rare disease after being bitten by an infected flea while camping in the area, according to El Dorado County health officials.
The most recent case before this one was reported in El Dorado County in 2020 and also was believed to have been transmitted in the same area, officials said. Two plague cases were reported in California in 2015, suspected to have been caused by bites from an infected flea or rodent in Yosemite National Park.
Even though medical advancements have made the deadly disease treatable, it hasn’t been eliminated.
Contracting the plague, even today
The plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and primarily affects small animals or rodents in the United States, Swartzberg said.
There are three types of the plague:
- bubonic plague, with the trademark swollen lymph nodes;
- septicemic plague, when the infection spreads throughout the body;
- pneumonic plague, which infects the lungs.
It can spread to humans and pets from the bite of an infected flea or from coming into close contact with, or handling, an infected rodent …
