Investigators believe she was bitten by a flea carrying the disease during the hunting trip.
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A teen girl from eastern Oregon has contracted the bubonic plague, health officials said.
Nobody else is believed to have been infected, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
After a trip near Heppner in Morrow County that began Oct. 16, the girl fell ill Oct. 21 and was hospitalized Oct. 24 in Bend.
The plague bacteria is carried by squirrels, chipmunks, and other wild rodents. The disease can be passed onto humans through the bites of fleas hosting on an infected animal.
The plague killed millions of people in Europe in the Middle Ages in a series of outbreaks known as the Black Death.
“Fortunately, plague remains a rare disease, but people need to take appropriate precautions with wildlife and their pets to keep it that way”, he said. In recent decades an average of 7 human plague cases has been reported nationwide each year in the US, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The plague is treatable with antibiotics if caught early.
The symptoms – fever, chills, headache, weakness, a bloody or watery cough – develop between one and 4 days after exposure, health officials said.
There are three different types of plague, but bubonic, a lymph node infection, is the most common.
In fact, between 2000 and 2009, over 20,000 people became infected with it-contracting the disease from eating rodents and bad camel meat or sick herding dogs, according to Live Science.
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Anyone who finds a sick or dead rodent should contact a staff veterinarian with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife at 1-866-968-2600.
