Officials say an oak tree limb fell on a tent in the heart of Yosemite National Park killing two young campers.
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A sign on the edge of Yosemite National Park, California, is surrounded by a burn from the Rim Fire, August 23, 2013.
The California Department of Public Health is investigating a second case of plague probably contracted in Yosemite National Park in recent weeks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still performing confirmatory testing, the statement said.
The treatments controlled potentially plague-infected fleas which could spread the disease to humans and other warm-blooded hosts. According to them, the patient who visited from Georgia, was tested following hearing that some parts of the park were closed for spraying pesticides in order to kill fleas that carry the infection.
Both the California child and the Georgia patient are being treated with antibiotics, and expected to make a full recovery. The Tuolumne Meadows Campground also was temporarily shut after several dead squirrels were found to be carrying the plague.
Lindquist said Hannah’s doctors took a biopsy and she tested positive for bubonic plague.
Earlier this month, Colorado officials said an unidentified adult died from plague. Nine people have died of plague in California since 1970, where the disease is “rare” but “endemic” in the Sierra Nevada and surrounding foothills, according to Yosemite’s website. Authorities say the infection can be fatal if not treated in its early stages. It is the second reported case of plague affecting a Yosemite visitor this summer.
Past reports addresses a child who fell sick through the plague after camping with his family at Yosemite’s Crane Flat Campground in mid-July. Medical experts are attempting to determine if the child’s case can be definitively connected to the cases of plague found in wildlife in the area or if they contracted the bacterial disease at a different location.
Plague symptoms do include fever, nausea, weakness, chills, and swollen lymph nodes in the armpit, groin, or neck area. It’s rare to have human to human transmission.
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“The risk of getting plague in California is very low”, Vicki Kramer, chief of the state health department’s vector-borne disease section, told KPCC. Campers should also gear up properly and are highly encouraged to wear long trousers tucked into hiking boots as well as use bug repellent with diethyltoluamide or DEET.
