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Three more cases of rare human plague found in Col

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inthesticks View Drop Down
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    Posted: July 19 2014 at 6:40am
Three more cases of rare human plague found in Colorado--

DENVER (Reuters) - Three more people in Colorado have been diagnosed with the plague after coming in contact with an infected dog whose owner contracted a life-threatening form of the disease, state health officials said on Friday.

In all, four people were infected with the disease from the same source, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a statement.

Last week the department said a man in an eastern Colorado county whose dog died of the plague had been diagnosed with pneumonic plague, a rare and serious form of the disease.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/three-more-cases-rare-human-plague-found-colorado-203310966.html
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 7:10am
inthesticks - haven't seen you in a while Smile

I was just reading some follow up stories after seeing your post, and it seems that the victims all caught it from the same dog. There was an odd reference to three of the latest victims contracting pneumonic plague, while the "the fourth case did not reach that level". Not sure what that means - diagnosed as being infected with the bacteria through laboratory testing, but not showing symptoms maybe?
I guess it has an incredibly high mortality rate although thankfully it's easily treated with antibiotics, but the fact that it's present in animals common to many parts of the States is worrisome if you take it one step further. If something were to knock society off balance for a while (like a major pandemic), this is the kind of thing that could easily come out of left field and spread if our healthcare infrastructure was already overwhelmed.


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"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hachiban08 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 10:12am
Hi inthesticks, hope you've been well :)

Is this the same plague that was in the Angeles National Forest or something different?
Be prepared! It may be time....^_^v
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote inthesticks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 12:54pm
@Jacksdad and hachiban08: greetings to you as well! :-) I've been around, usually lurking, but once in awhile i'll login and post something.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote inthesticks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 12:58pm
Colorado Man's Rare Pneumonic Disease Confirmed To Be State's First Human Case Since 2004--

http://www.hngn.com/articles/35765/20140710/colorado-mans-rare-pneumonic-disease-confirmed-states-first-human-case.htm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 4:23pm
No big deal I have been living in Colorado for 40 years and we have bouts of prairie dogs or rabbits carrying the fleas that carry the plague. The area is posted and if you have brains you keep your animals out of the area. If you let your animals run loose dogs or cats they pick up dead prairie dogs or rabbits and get the fleas. They come home and the fleas get on you and you get plague.

Kids also pick up dead animals also bad idea. Just use common sense and you don't get plague. No worries!

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote arirish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 7:07pm
inthesticks- Good to hear from you neighbor! I've been hearing rumors of a pneumonic plague epidemic in China's Gansu provence. Anyone else picked up on this? There were several articles written in Chinese that were removed from the internet.
Buy more ammo!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CRS, DrPH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 7:40pm
Plague (Yersinia pestis) is one of the "select agents" that we train for in bioterrorism exercises.  The pneumonic form is both highly contagious and very deadly.  

I know I've trashed the CDC recently (CDC Death Star etc.), but they have excellent resources:



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 8:47pm
Hachi, it's the same bacteria. The different forms derive their names from the areas where the bacteria is concentrated - in the lungs in cases of pneumonic plague, lymph nodes in bubonic plague, and blood vessels in septicemic plague.
Gotta love Wikipedia  Wink
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote hachiban08 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 8:56pm
Thanks for the info, Jacksdad :D haha my sophomore Chemistry professor used to teach from Wikipedia. I bought a 200$ text book for literally no reason and couldn't sell it back. Hope someone buys it from Amazon. x.x
Be prepared! It may be time....^_^v
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 9:01pm
I love it - and since I set up an account for my son on Khan Academy, I've been on there more than him LOL
"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep"
"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hachiban08 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 9:28pm
That sounds neat :D I dabble in codeacademy at times, because I want to be prepared for when I apply to UCSD for the Computational Linguist certificate program in a couple of years. Going for my masters first to make myself more competitive.
Be prepared! It may be time....^_^v
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 9:38pm
UCSD - my neck of the woods Thumbs Up
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hachiban08 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 19 2014 at 11:29pm
haha yeah! :D I hope I don't get distracted by the beach lol
Be prepared! It may be time....^_^v
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote onefluover Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 22 2014 at 1:42pm
Chinese city sealed off after bubonic plague death
30,000 residents of Yumen are not being allowed to leave and 151 people have been placed in quarantine after man's death.



Agence France-Presse in Beijing     
theguardian.com, Tuesday 22 July 2014 07.59 EDT


Bubonic plague bacteria. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A Chinese city has been sealed off and 151 people have been placed in quarantine since last week after a man died of bubonic plague, state media said.

The 30,000 residents of Yumen, in the north-western province of Gansu, are not being allowed to leave, and police at roadblocks on the perimeter of the city are telling motorists to find alternative routes, China Central Television (CCTV) said.

A 38-year-old man died last Wednesday, the report said, after he had been in contact with a dead marmot, a small furry animal related to the squirrel. No further plague cases have been reported.

CCTV said officials were not allowing anyone to leave. The China Daily newspaper said four quarantine sectors had been set up in the city.

"The city has enough rice, flour and oil to supply all its residents for up to one month," CCTV added. "Local residents and those in quarantine are all in stable condition." No further cases have been reported.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection best known for the Black Death, a virulent epidemic that killed tens of millions of people in 14th-century Europe. Primarily an animal illness, it is extremely rare in humans.

The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) says modern antibiotics are effective in treating plague, but that without prompt treatment the disease can cause serious illness or death.

"And then there were none."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 22 2014 at 1:58pm
Originally posted by hachiban08 hachiban08 wrote:

haha yeah! :D I hope I don't get distracted by the beach lol


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Elver Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 22 2014 at 4:40pm
Originally posted by FluMom FluMom wrote:

No big deal I have been living in Colorado for 40 years and we have bouts of prairie dogs or rabbits carrying the fleas that carry the plague. The area is posted and if you have brains you keep your animals out of the area. If you let your animals run loose dogs or cats they pick up dead prairie dogs or rabbits and get the fleas. They come home and the fleas get on you and you get plague.

Kids also pick up dead animals also bad idea. Just use common sense and you don't get plague. No worries!



The plague that normally goes around in Colorado rodents is "Bubonic Plague". This form of plague is generally caused by the bite of infected rodent fleas. It is an infection of the lymph system.

What we have in Colorado at the moment is the "Pneumonic Plague", which is more virulent than the Bubonic plague. This form of plague infects the respiratory system. One can catch this form by having contact with an infected patient in addition to contact with infected rodent fleas. You can also catch it by contact with infectious droplets from infected cats or dogs.

Pneumonic plague can spread person to person through the air and should not be confused with the bubonic plague. (Bubonic plague does not spread from person to person.)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 22 2014 at 8:55pm
Thanks Elver you just made my day! Now we have to worry about this in Colorado. I guess I need to look up the Pneumonic Plague!

Schools start in a month or less!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote onefluover Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 23 2014 at 7:20am
"Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, said that sealing off a city is a rather extreme set of precautions to take for a single case of bubonic plague. "I feel there's something here that we don't know, because this seems a very expansive response to just one case," Schaffner said."

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/07/23/chinese-officials-seal-off-plague-city-puzzling-us-experts/?intcmp=obnetwork



I smell bloated pigs afloat.

"And then there were none."
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