Man in Utah dies of plague

A man in his 70s in Utah has died after contracting the plague, bringing the number of deaths (in the US) from the disease this year up to four, health officials from the US have said.

The Guardian reports that officials said they believed the victim might have contracted the disease from a flea or from contact with a dead animal.

“That’s the most common way to get it,” said JoDee Baker, an epidemiologist with the agency. “That’s probably what happened but we’re still doing an investigation into that.”

The rare disease is carried by rodents and spread by fleas and it is currently occurring in Utah rodents. Wildlife and health officials confirmed in July that an outbreak of bubonic plague had killed 60 to 80 prairie dogs in an eastern Utah colony, the Guardian adds.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said 12 human cases had been reported in six states since 1st April and that the other three fatalities were people who died aged 16, 52 and 79.

According to the centre, anywhere between one and 17 cases of the illness have been reported each year in the US since 2000, and deaths are rare, with no more than two a year having been recorded over the past 15 years.

The Guardian reports Dr Paul Mead saying that four deaths so far this year was not necessarily a cause for alarm.

“Yes it’s twice as many, but when you’re dealing with small numbers, you have that kind of variation.”

Patients in a few of the 11 other cases this year came down with the plague after a visit to the Yosemite National Park in California.

The last  recoded human case of plague in Utah was in 2009, but state health department said no deaths from plague had been recorded in the state in at least 35 years.