Squirrel in USA tests positive for Bubonic Plague after outbreak began in China

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While the United States remains the worst-hit country by COVID-19, another infectious disease has made landfall and started spreading. As per latest reports, a squirrel has been infected with Bubonic plague, another disease that started from China. The Squirrel tested positive on July 11 in Morrison and immediately an alert was issued by the county health department. 

What is the Bubonic Plague?

In Bubonic Plague, patients develop sudden onset of fever, headache, chills, and weakness and one or more swollen, tender and painful lymph nodes (called buboes). This form is usually the result of an infected flea bite. The bacteria multiply in the lymph node closest to where the bacteria entered the human body. If the patient is not treated with appropriate antibiotics, the bacteria can spread to other parts of the body.

The bubonic plague is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. It can spread through contact with infected fleas.

Bubonic Plague caused the Black Death

The disease that spread like wildfire through Europe between 1347 and 1351 is still the most violent epidemic in recorded history. It killed at least a third of the population, more than 25 million people. Victims first suffered pain, fever and boils, then swollen lymph nodes and blotches on the skin. After that they vomited blood and died within three days. The survivors called it the Great Pestilence. Victorian scientists dubbed it the Black Death. As far as the scientists are concerned, the Black Death was bubonic plague.