McGrath, who owns the private campground in Groveland, California with her husband Joe, said they had a handful of campers come to Yosemite Ridge after their reservations inside the park were cancelled due to the cases of plague.
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The CDPH confirms that plague has been confirmed in wildlife residing at the Tuolumne and Crane Flat campgrounds within Yosemite.
On August 11, Hannah developed symptoms, four days after her family returned to Georgia from visiting and camping at Yosemite’s Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome.
While the fleas came from rats aboard the ship, they soon spread to other rodents, such as mice, squirrels, chipmunks, and prairie dogs, all who call Yosemite and other parts of the western United States home.
Health officials say the Georgia patient is the second human case in less than a month as California authorities investigate an outbreak that also involves infected animals in Yosemite National Park, the Sierra National Forest, and surrounding areas. There have been only 42 cases of human plague in California since 1970, of which nine were fatal. When an infected rodent becomes sick and dies, its fleas can carry the infection to other warm-blooded animals or humans. “Those warnings helped the patient get the prompt medical attention necessary to recover from this illness”. Today, the plague can be easily treated with antibiotics. Small rodents such as mice are usually less susceptible than larger rodents are to becoming severely ill with plague, but if squirrels or chipmunks become infected, they usually die, Chomel said.
“The fact that there’s been a second case of plague does not mean that there’s substantially more plague circulating in the rodent population”, Smith said.
Plague symptoms include fever, chills, nausea, weakness and swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpit or groin. Human-to-human transmission is rare and typically requires direct and close contact with the person with pneumonic plague. But the plague now is well understood, public-health practices have greatly limited its spread, and modern antibiotics are effective in treating it.
People travelling to areas where plague is most commonly found, such as the West, can protect themselves from infection by avoiding any contact with wild rodents. But it hasn’t eliminated the disease entirely, even in developed countries like the U.S.
“The California Department of Public Health and Yosemite National Park were very proactive in their campaign to educate visitors about plague”, said Dr. Smith.
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The CDC reports that the United States has about seven cases annually.
