Officials said there has not been a case of human infection in California since three patients were diagnosed in Mono, Los Angeles and Kern counties from 2005 to 2006.
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According to a press release from the CDPH, the department will conduct an “environmental evaluation in the Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite National Park, and the surrounding areas”. No other family members became sick, and the child is recovering. As a precaution, officials are warning residents to protect themselves from bugs using repellant containing DEET and to avoid feeding live, wild rodents and touching dead ones. The plague is an infectious bacterial disease usually carried by squirrels, chipmunks, other wild rodents and fleas that inhabit their hides.
Smith also advised campers to protect their pets from fleas and keep them away from wild animals.
Colorado officials said Wednesday that an unidentified adult died from plague. While plague is unusual in the U.S.an average of seven cases are reported every year and people can die from it if they don’t get treated.
Dr. Danielle Buttke is with the U.S. Public Health Service and is now in Yosemite investigating the outbreak, along with CDPH and Centers for Disease Control officials. In 2013, campgrounds in Angeles National Forest were closed after plague was detected in a ground squirrel, and several counties across California detected plague in 2014.
A child has contracted the plague after a trip to a national park in California.
In California, infected animals will likely be found in the mountains, foothills and sometimes the coast.
In response to the case, Yosemite will be handing out information to visitors about avoiding the plague and signs will be posted in the areas near Crane Flat.
This is the third notable case of Plague in the American West this year; there have been two plague-related deaths in Colorado. When caught in the early stages, plague is treatable by antibiotics.
Since 1970, there have been a total of 42 cases in the state, with 9 fatalities. According to research provided to CityLab by the CDC, plague-induced epizootics-those large animal die-offs-can intensify when cool summers follow wet winters, a climate pattern common in much of the Southwest. Though the plague can take a variety of forms, about 80 percent of human cases since the 1900s have been bubonic (yes, the same lymph node-swelling disease that wiped out half of Medieval Europe).
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Symptoms of the plague include swelling at the site of the bite, fever and flu-like illness.
