Elderly Utah resident dies from plague: health officials

(Reuters) – An elderly Utah resident died from the plague earlier this month, state health officials said on Thursday, the first person in Utah to have been diagnosed with the disease since 2009.

The Utah Department of Health did not identify the patient, but said he or she may have contracted plague from a flea, or contact with a dead animal. The bacteria that causes the disease occurs naturally in the western United States.

“The investigation continues,” the department said in a statement, adding that public health officials do not believe the person had traveled anywhere else where the plague is common.

The plague is typically seen in Utah’s prairie dog population every year, it noted, and it said species such as ferrets, squirrels, and rabbits are also especially susceptible.

Four people have now died out of the dozen cases of human plague which have been reported across seven states since April 1, the department said. It cited four in Colorado, two each in New Mexico and Arizona, and one each in Utah, Oregon, California, and Georgia.

The cases in Georgia and California were linked to exposures at or near Yosemite National Park.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says the plague was introduced to the United States in 1900 by rat–infested steamships that had sailed from affected areas, mostly in Asia.

It said in a report this week that it was unclear why the number of U.S. infections in 2015 was higher than the average of just a few human cases that has been normal in recent decades.

(Reporting by Daniel Wallis in Denver; Editing by Sandra Maler)

• Health
• Public Health
• Utah Department of Health