21-07-2025
Man left with riddled with ulcer-like boils 24 hours after catching bubonic plague from pet cat
A MAN started growing boils up his arm just hours after catching the bubonic plague from his pet cat.
The 73-year-old from Oregon, US, had accidentally cut his finger with a kitchen knife in January of 2024 before touching the feline.
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The cat was already on antibiotics for an infection, thought to be a neck abscess, at the time.
Within a day, a "tender" ulcer appeared on his wrist, according to a paper in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Over the next several hours, the infection spread, causing redness and bumps called buboes that extended up his arm toward his armpit.
Buboes are swollen lymph nodes that enlarge and become tender due to the infection.
If left untreated, the infection can cause the skin over the buboes to turn black and die, which is where the plague gets its name, the 'Black Death.'
Four days later, the pensioner went to hospital, where doctors put him on antibiotics.
Tests later confirmed he was infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague, according to US Centre for Disease Controls Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,
Medics then switched him onto stronger plague-fighting drugs, including gentamicin and levofloxacin, and he began to improve.
He was kept in hospital for over a week and sent home with more medication to finish recovering.
At a check-up days later, he was back on his feet, although still feeling wiped out.
Though many believe the medieval disease is long gone, some countries still suffer deadly outbreaks of plague due to animals carrying the bacteria.
In recent years, it has reported in the US, Peru, China, Bolivia, Uganda, Tanzania and Russia.
Experts writing the report, published last week, said the case marked the earliest the bubonic plague has struck in Oregon, with previous cases usually hitting from May onwards.
They believe rising winter temperatures could be helping plague, carrying fleas stay active longer, increasing the risk of off-season outbreaks.
The man's cat later died after surgery because the owner was unable to give it antibiotics.
Tests later confirmed the cat was positive for the same deadly plague bacteria that infected the man.
The infectious bacterial disease is carried by wild rodents and their fleas.
Officials haven't confirmed exactly how the infection passed from the cat to its owner, but if the cat was bitten by infected fleas, it could have brought the bacteria or fleas into the home, exposing the man.
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Cats are especially vulnerable to plague because their immune systems struggle to fight off the infection.
Plus, they're more likely than many other pets to hunt and catch rodents carrying infected fleas, increasing their risk of contracting, and spreading, the disease.
Plague remains on both the WHO and UK Health Security Agency's (UKHSA) priority pathogen lists due to its potential to cause a pandemic.
The WHO estimates between 1,000 and 2,000 cases of plague occur globally each year.
Though now rare and treatable with antibiotics, plague can still be deadly.
The three types of plague
Plague takes a few forms. Bubonic plague, the most common form.
The main symptoms include buboes, usually in the neck, groin, thighs, or armpits.
They may also burst open, releasing the pus inside.
Septicemic plague occurs when the infection spreads to the bloodstream.
It can develop on its own or as a complication of bubonic plague, causing symptoms like fever, abdominal pain, shock, and bleeding into the skin and organs.
Pneumonic plague, the deadliest form, is fatal in up to 90 per cent of patients if left untreated.
It often develops when untreated bubonic or septicemic plague spreads to the lungs.
But it can also be caught from inhaling the respiratory droplets (e.g. via coughing or sneezing) from an infected person.
It infects the lungs and can spread rapidly between humans through airborne droplets.
Symptoms include fever, cough, difficulty breathing, and sometimes coughing up blood. Pneumonic plague requires immediate medical attention.
Last week, health officials in Arizona announced that a man had died from pneumonic plague just 24 hours after his symptoms began.
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Risk to Brits is 'very low'
On average, there are seven human plague cases are reported in the US each year, according to the CDC.
Meanwhile, plague is no longer found in the UK, and the risk of imported cases is considered 'very low,' according to government guidance.
However, Covid jab scientists are developing a Black Death vaccine over fears the disease could re-emerge and kill millions.
The team behind the Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine said they had made progress on an injection that could prevent bubonic plague from developing.
The last significant British outbreak occurred in Suffolk in 1918, though a few isolated cases have been suspected since.
History of the Black Death
THE Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague which struck Europe and Asia in the 1300s.
It killed more than 20 million people in Europe and about 25 million more across Asia and North Africa, totaling roughly 45 million deaths worldwide.
Scientists now know the plague was spread by a bacillus known as yersina pestis.
Bubonic plague can cause swelling of the lymph nodes. If untreated, it could spread to the blood and lungs.
Other symptoms included fever, vomiting and chills.
Physicians relied on treatments such as boil-lancing to bathing in vinegar as they tried to treat people with the plague.
Some believed that the Black Death was a "divine punishment" - a form of retribution for sins against God
