Plague Infects Oregon Man Who Tried to Get Rodent From
Stray Cat – June 15
An Oregon man who was bitten by a stray cat has contracted the plague — the fifth case of the disease in Oregon since
1995.
By Nigel Duara and Steven Duboist
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — Health officials have confirmed an Oregon man has the
plague after he was bitten while trying to take a dead rodent from the mouth of
a stray cat.
The unidentified Prineville, Ore., man was in critical condition on
Friday. He is suffering from a blood-borne version of the disease, not the
bubonic plague, which wiped out at least one-third of Europe in the 14th
century. The bubonic plague affects the lymph nodes.
There is an average of seven human plague cases in the U.S. each
year. A map maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows
most cases since the 1970s have been in the West, primarily the
southwest.
The last reported case of plague in Washington state occurred in
1984 when an animal trapper in Yakima became infected while skinning a bobcat.
In 2010, a Washington laboratory technician was treated to prevent plague
infection after working with a specimen from one of the two reported cases in
Oregon at the time.
The plague bacteria cycles through rodent populations without
killing them off; in urban areas, it's transmitted back and forth from rats to
fleas. There's even a name for it, the "enzootic cycle."
The bacteria thrive in forests, semiarid areas and grasslands,
which plague-carrying rodents from wood rats to rock squirrels call
home.
Once a coin flip with death, the plague is now easier to handle for
humans in the U.S. The national mortality rate stood at 66 percent before World
War II, but advances in antibiotics dropped that rate to its present 16
percent.
Central Oregon health officials don't blame the
cat.
"The reality is that, in rural areas, part of the role of cats is
to keep the rodent population controlled around our homes and barns" said Karen
Yeargain of the Crook County Health Department.
The Prineville man, who is in his 50s, remained in critical
condition Friday at a Bend hospital. His illness marks the fifth case of plague
in Oregon since 1995.
State public health veterinarian Dr. Emilio DeBess said the man was
infected when he was bitten by the stray his family befriended. The cat died and
its body is being sent to the CDC for testing.
DeBess has collected blood samples from two dogs and another cat
that lives with the man's family. DeBess also collected blood samples from
neighbors' pets and from animals in the local shelter to determine whether the
area has a plague problem.
More than a dozen people who were in contact with the sick man have
been notified and are receiving preventive antibiotics.
For information regarding rodent control in Seattle, and rodent control in King, Snohomish and Skagit counties see
http://www.cascadepest.com/rodents/index.htm
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Mercer Island is known for it's fine homes and an abundance of tree and waterfront. It is perhaps the amount of waterfront that lends itself to rat infestation on Mercer Island. Also, Mercer Island has a number of ravines and "green belts"--wooded areas--that can harbor rodents. Add all that to the very basic fact that rodents follow residential development as these rodents--old-world rats and mice--are commensal, meaning they "live with humans," and Mercer Island is set up for rat problems.
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