Colorado girl recovering from bubonic plague
The parents of 7-year-old Sierra Jane Downing thought she had the flu when she felt sick days after camping in southwest Colorado.
It wasn’t until she had a seizure that her father knew something was seriously wrong and rushed her to a hospital in their town of Pagosa Springs. She had a 107-degree fever, and doctors were baffled by the cause.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I just reacted,” Sean Downing said. “I thought she died.”
The Downings eventually learned their daughter was ill with one of the last things they would’ve thought: bubonic plague, a disease that wiped out one-third of Europe in the 14th century but is now exceedingly rare - it hasn’t been confirmed in Colorado since 2006 - and treatable if caught early.
Federal health officials say they are aware of two other confirmed and one probable case of plague in the U.S. so far this year - an average year. The other confirmed cases were in New Mexico and Oregon, and the probable case also was in Oregon. None were fatal.
Plague is generally transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas but also can be transmitted by direct contact with infected animals, including rodents, rabbits and pets.
The Black Death: Bubonic Plague
In the early 1330s an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague occurred in China. The bubonic plague mainly affects rodents, but fleas can transmit the disease to people. Once people are infected, they infect others very rapidly. Plague causes fever and a painful swelling of the lymph glands called buboes, which is how it gets its name. The disease also causes spots on the skin that are red at first and then turn black.
Since China was one of the busiest of the world’s trading nations, it was only a matter of time before the outbreak of plague in China spread to western Asia and Europe. In October of 1347, several Italian merchant ships returned from a trip to the Black Sea, one of the key links in trade with China. When the ships docked in Sicily, many of those on board were already dying of plague. Within days the disease spread to the city and the surrounding countryside. An eyewitness tells what happened:
“Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying. Friars and nuns were left to care for the sick, and monasteries and convents were soon deserted, as they were stricken, too. Bodies were left in empty houses, and there was no one to give them a Christian burial.”
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged that a series of frightening illnesses linked to insects and pests have been surfacing lately across the country, including mosquito-borne West Nile virus outbreaks in Texas and other states, deadly hantavirus cases linked to Yosemite National Park, and some scattered plague cases.
25 million people died in just under five years between 1347 and 1352. Estimated population of Europe from 1000 to 1352.
1000 - 38 million
1100 - 48 million
1200 - 59 million
1300 - 70 million
1347 - 75 million
1352 - 50 million
But with some of the illnesses - like plague - this is not an unusually bad year; it’s just getting attention. And the number of cases of each disease is driven by different factors.
“I don’t think there’s a confluence of any particular set of factors” driving the recent illness reports, said Kiersten Kugeler, a CDC epidemiologist in Colorado who tracks plague reports.
First Case of Bubonic Plague in 2011 Appears in New Mexico
Turns out, the plague isn’t just ancient history. New Mexico health officials recently confirmed the first human case of bubonic plague - previously known as the “Black Death” - to surface in the U.S. in 2011.
An unidentified 58-year-old man was hospitalized for a week after suffering from a high fever, pain in his abdomen and groin, and swollen lymph nodes, reports the New York Daily News. (Officials declined to say when the man was released from the hospital.) A blood sample from the man tested positive for the disease.
In Sierra Jane’s case, a Pagosa Springs emergency room doctor who saw her late on Aug. 24 called other hospitals, some of whom thought she’d be fine the next day, before the girl was flown to Denver, Sean Downing said.
There, a pediatric doctor at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children racing to save Sierra Jane’s life got the first inkling that she had bubonic plague. Dr. Jennifer Snow suspected the disease based on the girl’s symptoms, a history of where she’d been, and an online journal’s article on a teen with similar symptoms.
Dr. Wendi Drummond, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the hospital, agreed and ordered a specific antibiotic for Sierra Jane while tests were run, later confirming their rare diagnosis.
It was the first bubonic plague case Snow and her colleagues had seen.
“I credit them for thinking outside the box,” said Dr. Tracy Butler, medical director of the hospital’s pediatric intensive unit.
It’s not clear why Colorado hasn’t seen another human case until now, state public health veterinarian Elisabeth Lawaczeck said.
By the night of Aug. 25, Sierra Jane’s heart rate was high, her blood pressure was low, and a swollen lymph node in her left groin was so painful it hurt to undergo the ultrasound that detected the enlarged node, Snow said.
Doctors say the girl could be discharged from the hospital within a week.
On Wednesday, Sierra Jane flashed a smile with two dimples as she faced reporters in a wheelchair, her pink-toed socks peeking out from the white blanket enveloping her as she held a brown teddy bear.
“She’s just a fighter,” said her mother, Darcy Downing.
Darcy Downing said her daughter may have been infected by insects near a dead squirrel she wanted to bury at their campground on U.S. Forest Service land, even though Darcy had warned her daughter to leave it alone. She remembered catching her daughter near the squirrel with her sweat shirt on the ground. Her daughter later had the shirt tied around her torso, where doctors spotted insect bites.
The bubonic plague, or Black Death, killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe in the Middle Ages. Today, it can be treated with antibiotics, but it’s important to catch it early.
“If she had stayed home, she could’ve easily died within 24 to 48 hours from the shock of infection,” Snow said.
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Associated Press