Man in New Mexico Dies From Plague in Nation’s First Fatal Case Since 2020
“This tragic incident serves as a clear reminder of the threat posed by this ancient disease.”
Last month, I reported that Oregon had its first human bubonic plague case in nearly 10 years. It appears the pet cat was the carrier of the fleas that led to this particular infection.
That case was not fatal. However, the disease recently claimed the life of a man in New Mexico.
In a statement released on Friday, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) announced the death of an unidentified man from Lincoln County.
“We extend our deepest sympathy to the family of the Lincoln County man who succumbed to plague,” said State Public Health Veterinarian Erin Phipps, DVM, MPH. “This tragic incident serves as a clear reminder of the threat posed by this ancient disease and emphasizes the need for heightened community awareness and proactive measures to prevent its spread.”
According to the NMDOH, the man’s death was the first reported human case of the bubonic plague in New Mexico since 2021 and the first death since 2020, when there were four reported human cases of the plague in the state.
While the disease is rare, most reported cases occur in the Four Corners region.
Once a great killer, the bubonic plague now infects fewer than 10 Americans a year, according to the CDC. However, the disease has come extremely rare thanks to improved hygiene and innovations of modern medicine like antibiotics.
Most occur in the Four Corners area of the US – New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona – because the area has a high concentration of rodents due to its favorable climate, experts say.
In bubonic plague, the most common type, the infection spreads to immune glands called lymph nodes, causing them to become swollen and painful. These may progress to open sores.
Symptoms usually develop within two to eight days and include fever, headache, chills, and weakness.
The CDC estimates that 80 percent of plague cases in the US have been bubonic.
The bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, which is found in rodents (and the fleas that bite those animals). When infected, patients experience a wide array of symptoms (headache, fever, chills) to swollen lymph nodes known as buboes, from which the disease takes its name.
“The buboes form at the site of the bite from the infected rodent or flea,” explained Erica Susky, a certified infection control practitioner based in Canada.
While there is no vaccine, the plague can be remedied with antibiotics if caught early.
However, it can also become fatal if left untreated.
“Bubonic plague is a serious infectious illness alone, but can also develop quickly into more severe and deadly forms of plague,” Susky warned. “More serious forms include pneumonic and septicemic plague, which is where the bacteria invade the lungs and bloodstream.”
To mitigate the risk of transmission, experts advise people to prevent pets from roaming and hunting and to avoid sick or dead rodents and rabbits as well as their nests and burrows.
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Comments
I can hardly wait to be the first on the block to contract Cholera.
I’m holding out for leprosy.
I’ll see your leprosy and raise you a case of yaws.
Yaw but, what about tik tok? They’re trying to ban that but can’t do anything about millions of diseased illegals crossing the border.
Because apparently Tikkity Tok is more dangerous than 8 million + military aged males from the shit holes of the world crossing our borders without delay.
More people have died at the hands of illegal military aged males in the US, than have died of “THE PLAGUE!!!!!, OMG!!!!”
in the past year.
I am all for immigration. But based on our laws, not because a dithering pervert with dementia is running the show.
LOOK! Ice cream!
From a comment on Althouse Blog, another legal profess0r, but retired)
Most articles are talking about the horrible content China pushes into the data streams of our youth, and Begley notes another feature above, the ability to push notify or geotarget users. Those abilities were on full display this week as TT urged users to call their Congresscritters and make threats.
But it is the data-mining that China does via TT that is most dangerous and extremely pervasive across almost ALL apps on mobile phones. All the tech CEOs have lied to Congress about how they handle personal data, usually asserting that they “anonymize it,” which is a blatant lie for most of the data tied to your unique device.
China takes it extremely far in that they keylog everything: passwords, credit card numbers, screen lock codes, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you type on your device, as well as anything you SAY within a few dozen feet of your phone or PC. It is all transcribed and bundled up linked to you the user. It is pervasive in mining the data that every other app has gathered from you too and transmitting every single bit of it back to Beijing, to the spymasters of the CCP. China is creating a huge database of every American user of TT, what you like and don’t like, where you shop and for what, your habits good and bad, who you talk to, where you go, how and when you sleep.
If you shop at Target or use their app, for example, it maps your movements through the store and TT knows what you linger over, what you purchase, what you later return, what you say about the goods and services. This and much much more is why the TT app is banned on government phones and computers and even private devices in Federal government work areas (which I have a sinking feeling Biden has relaxed too much, given his campaign’s reliance on TT to spread his message). This law might be a piece of crap, but the problem it is supposed to address is very real, very dangerous in the hands of the CCP.
————–
So why does Trump support giving the Chinese Communist Party all of your personal information?
“Once a great killer, the bubonic plague now infects fewer than 10 Americans a year, according to the CDC.” Really???
I’m sure the reintroduction of Black Footed Ferrets in the region at the insistence of environmental groups has nothing to do with it
Probably not as much as introducing unvented illegal criminal invaders into the region does.
There’s something about the Plague and desert regions. It’s believed it broke out in Europe after unusually cold weather allowed infected rats to cross otherwise inhospitable desert to reach populated areas.
cudnt have anything to do with the invasion on the southern boarder.
has nuttin to do wiff boarder. that’s jus a doorway.
My brother was at Philmont in 1969 and they were quarantined due to a plague outbreak among the local Native American tribes. Since he was on the trail for the entire length of the quarantine time it didn’t have much impact on him.
In NM we have Plague and Hantavirus. It has nothing to do with illegal immigration and everything to do with fleas on prairie dogs.
Open borders biden welcomes them all??
Yes and don’t you be thinking they’re illegals. Biden apologized for that. He is very sorry he called the illegal alien who killed Laken Riley an illegal. On the contrary, he’s a very sweet boy who happend to have a rough childhood.
It’s LINCOLN, for Pete’s sake!
Say her name!
😉
Actually, not this time. It’s carried by rodents and passed from them to other animals, including humans, by fleas, and has been endemic in the western half of the country since before 1900. Prarie dogs and racoons are good carriers as well as rats. I remember an outbreak in SoCal in the mid ’70s which made international news. The head of the Medieval history department at an TCD read about the mystery disease and its symptoms, and promptly told her students (I heard the story from one of them) it was plague. Two days later it was reported to be the plague. The victims got it from fleas off raccoons living in an unused chimney at their house.
Just pray we don’t get the pneumonic or septicemic forms which spread directly from human to human, have much higher fatality rates, and run their course in much shorter times, leaving a much smaller window within which treatment might be successful.
I’m sure the border rats will be bringing the more lethal plague with them as I type
TB and other diseases/maladies for sure but bubonic plague has been in the Southwest for a long time well before the Biden open border policy.
Yes, this People article is simply a treasure trove of amazement. The subhead:
“This is the first human case of plague in the state since 2021 and the first death since 2020”
Well, both of those are still a hell of a lot more recent than I would have guessed.
And to boot, all the press about this case is being handled by “State Public Health Veterinarian Erin Phipps.” That’s bizarrely off-putting.
IMO it doesn’t seem too Cray Cray for the State Veterinarian to be quoted when we consider that the plague is endemic in animal populations in parts of the SW, nearly exclusively in rodents.
CTH
I guess the Biden kill American plan is
March 13, 2024 3:57 pm
I guess the Biden kill American plan is working:
TB: So we have 24% increase in TB cases and now it has a 13% death rate! And unlike COVID, this is not an exaggeration!
https://twitter.com/houmanhemmati/status/1767983191560958105
Yep. TB is no joke and no question many illegal aliens are bringing it with them.
If the leftists won’t stop letting these illegal aliens into the Nation the least they could do is do a rigorous medical screening then vaccinate and quarantine before releasing them.
I’ve come across posters warning of plague in remote regions on the crest of the Sierra-Cascade mountains. That’s generally the border area between mixed high plains sage desert and pine-fir forest.
Nothing a wee dram of the four thieves vinegar won’t set right.
Why was treatment delayed? Why did he not seek treatment?
With antibiotics, Bubonic plague is a nothing burger.
A little doxycycline ‘ll doya. Something that wasnt available in 1346
At least in the past, many cases were in Native Americans who didn’t trust the modern American medical system (not without cause, BIA has a lot to answer for), or were out in the back country on foot, too far out to reach medical assistance in time, even had they wanted to.
Given the last 4 years, a lot more folks don’t trust the system either.
Probably an illegal or Indian who of course was denied treatment because he was not White
Story at 6
Other than the swollen lymph nodes, the symptoms could be a cold or flu.
Why is that picture up at the top with all the rotted fingers?
Another way treatment may be delayed is that a doctor doesn’t recognize the plague until it is far advanced. There’s an adage taught in medical school about diagnosis: “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” That is, look for a common disease rather than something exotic. But in this age, bubonic plague _is_ a zebra – and yet, it occurs.
I remember an establishment leaning pundit (although a well meaning establishment leaning pundit) saying nothing to worry about, if any sign that illegals were transporting disease, there would be a public outcry and changes would be made. We’ll see. I don’t think that pundit had met unverified mail in ballots and their ballot harvesting friends.
The only thing surprising is that more people haven’t died from legacy diseases and viruses.
That we know about
Kind of like 15 year olds having heart attacks
“the first death since 2020”
the cynic in me says that any deaths from the plague were reported as COVID in those 4 years since….
Dying in a car accident was listed as a COVID death.
Kinda hard to skim bucks off the system when the only way to get the bucks was to call a head cold “COVID!”
Side bar. It’s funny that when typing COVID on my alleged “smart phone” it comes up as “cold.”
Lead photo still isn’t as bad as your toenail fungus ads, but you’re closing the gap.
“I held you right on the tips of my fingers… but I let them fall off my hands”. “We are the world” was cute when it wasn’t. Now it is.
biden wants to put y’all back in the middle ages.
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy /
Back in the SP /
Back in the SP /
Back in the SPQR…
That no identifying information was given about him, and given the state in which it happened, makes me strongly suspect he was an illegal immigrant.
Any reference to the CDC immediately destroys credibility or reliability. If anything, I’d suspect CDC of being an active malefactor in propopagation of the disease.
What did Fauxch know and when did he know it?