Oregon man battling 'Black Death' plague

[SivVulk]

A man in Oregon is in critical condition after contracting the illness long known as the Black Death.

The man, in his 50s, is thought to have picked up the infection earlier this month while trying to remove a dead mouse from the mouth of a stray cat.

Within a couple of days, he developed a high fever and nausea and headed to hospital. Doctors there diagnosed him with septicemic plague -- the kind of plague that spreads in the blood.

He was reported on Thursday to be in critical condition.

While many may think the plague was eradicated centuries ago, in fact, the bacterium that causes it, Yersinia pestis, still circulates among the fleas that live on rodents and other animals.

Oregon has about one human case a year, while the U.S. as a whole records an average of 11 cases a year, mostly in the South.

Human cases of plague are very rare in Canada, says the Public Health Agency of Canada. The last case was reported in 1939.

http://www.canadaka.net/link.php?id=75397

Yikes that's quite the superlative to boast Oregon.

Hopefully the man can battle through. The mortality rate ranges from 35 to 75%

[IFF]

hopefully the guy can recover

[SivVulk]

i buried three mice a couple of days ago. None of them showed any signs of having being killed by a predator... they all seemed to have died of natural causes. Of course I didn't touch them with my bare hands...

[Šñøü†ê®]

That is weird a dude would mess with a stray cat feeding. I actually deal with critters literally everyday. I generally fling them into the pond for fresh eating birds and the snapping turtles to eat. I did catch a bit of a cold the other day for the first time in years.

[queenlillian1962]

Why would anybody take DEAD mouse from a stray cats mouth?

[Malcolm Wright]

Why would anybody take DEAD mouse from a stray cats mouth?

Yup - definitely a case of being left with a bigger question AFTER reading the article