LA Women Diagnosed with Bubonic Plague

[Craig]

LOS ANGELES - A woman is in stable condition with bubonic plague, the first confirmed human case in Los Angeles County since 1984, health officials said Tuesday.

The woman, who was not identified, was admitted to a hospital April 13 with a fever, swollen lymph nodes and other symptoms. A blood test confirmed the bacterial disease, and she was given antibiotics, officials said.

Bubonic plague is not contagious, but if left untreated it can morph into pneumonic plague, which is. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted to humans from the bites of fleas infected by rodents.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12387983/

The plague is come! The plague is come! May God have mercy on our souls!

Actually, there's good evidence to suggest that whatever plague infected people in the 14th century, it wasn't bubonic. But that's a side point. ;)

[Confucius]

Bubonic Plague, holy crap.

[nonsqtr]

Yeah, that's pretty wild, huh? I just heard about this one (sorry, a little behind today).

Apparently there are somewhere between ten and twenty thousand cases of this, per year, in the US.

Most of the time people get it from rodents. And if it's left un-addressed, it can turn into something much more serious.

I've been hearing about that mumps thing in Iowa too, it's up to around 800 cases right now (ouch).

:eek:

[dittohead not!]

Yeah, that's pretty wild, huh? I just heard about this one (sorry, a little behind today).

Apparently there are somewhere between ten and twenty thousand cases of this, per year, in the US.

Most of the time people get it from rodents. And if it's left un-addressed, it can turn into something much more serious.

I've been hearing about that mumps thing in Iowa too, it's up to around 800 cases right now (ouch).

:eek:

Yes, I'm not sure why. I thought all children had to be immunized against mumps - MMR? No more?

I've never had the plague, but did manage to catch the mumps before they invented the vaccine. Smallpox was the only one invented in time for me.

I had measles, rubella, chicken pox, and whooping cough, too. It used to be expected that children would eventually get all of the above, and could well hit the jackpot and get polio. So much for "good old days."

[nonsqtr]

Yes, I'm not sure why. I thought all children had to be immunized against mumps - MMR? No more?

I've never had the plague, but did manage to catch the mumps before they invented the vaccine. Smallpox was the only one invented in time for me.

I had measles, rubella, chicken pox, and whooping cough, too. It used to be expected that children would eventually get all of the above, and could well hit the jackpot and get polio. So much for "good old days."


Wow... well, here's a wild one for you (but a true story).

Once upon a time, I was a homeless dude living on the streets of NYC.

We're talkin' the dead-of-winter, with the typical snowstorms and all that stuff....

Anyway, one evening I took shelter in a little alcove right near the Forbes Museum, on fifth-avenue and twelfth-street, something like that.

I had a pretty good sleeping bag, but that particular night, a mouse got into it.

All of a sudden, I felt this biological-thing poking around my feet, and it woke me out a deep sleep.

First I thought it was "on the outside" of my sleeping bag, so I kicked it a couple times to try to make it go away.... and the more I kicked it, the fuzzier and more active that little sucker got.

Pretty soon I realized what might be going on (it took a while, I had to wake up first) - and then I finally got up into the freezin'-a** night air, and opened up my sleeping bag.

And lo and behold, what did I find? Not one, but two mice, and one of 'em was real mad when it had to leave my warm sleepin'-bag and get tossed back into the streets....

And it tried to bite me - imagine that - a freakin' mouse......

Well, you know what I'm sayin'.....

Ha ha - you and I probably live in pretty decent spaces, or at least most of us do - but check out the "wild outdoors", and I guarantee you'll pick up a strange tropical disease or something..... :eek:

I just got cured from a viral thing that I contracted somewhere back in that time frame (twenty years ago?) - it didn't show up in my bloodstream until just recently, but it got real bad real quick.

And fortunately, I had Nicky watching my back on this one - she got me into an experimental program at UCLA that definitely saved my life (it was painful and time-consuming, and involved some new-fangled drugs with pretty serious side effects, but bottom-line, "I'm here".....)

Freakin' mice.... Bastids.... :D:D:D

[Sauniere]

This has been around for quite awhile. No big deal, easily treatable. Don't fool around with squirrels because they seem to be the number one carriers of the fleas in the New World, i.e., not the rats.

[Pulcinella]

This has been around for quite awhile. No big deal, easily treatable. Don't fool around with squirrels because they seem to be the number one carriers of the fleas in the New World, i.e., not the rats.

And it's hard to catch and very sensitive to antibiotics. Luckily.