Latest news with #BlackDeath
Scottish Sun
2 days ago
- Health
- Scottish Sun
Man left with riddled with ulcer-like boils 24 hours after catching bubonic plague from pet cat
Cats are especially vulnerable to plague because their immune systems struggle to fight off the infection 'BLACK DEATH' Man left with riddled with ulcer-like boils 24 hours after catching bubonic plague from pet cat Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) 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. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 A pensioner is believed to have caught the plague from his pet cat. Credit: Getty 5 The case marked the earliest the bubonic plague has struck in Oregon 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. Arizona Reports Fatal Black Death Case: Plague Claims Life in 24 Hours 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. 5 London was ridden with plague in the 1300s Credit: Getty - Contributor 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. 5 Bubonic plague can cause the skin and tissue to turn black and die Credit: Wikipedia 5 The blackened hand of a man recovering from a rare case of The Plague in the US 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.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Health
- The Sun
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. 5 5 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. 5 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. 5 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
News.com.au
3 days ago
- Health
- News.com.au
The black plague is still killing people in 2025
President Donald Trump was swept into office promising to Make America Healthy Again. Now his controversial Health Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, must contend with the return of the Black Death. The plague that killed millions in Medieval Europe and Asia has claimed a life in Arizona. It's the first fatality for the condition in that state for more than 18 years. And it's a stark reminder that the bacteria behind the deadly disease is deeply entrenched in the US heartland. It involved the plague's most deadly incarnation. 'The recent death is concerning, as it involves the airborne pneumonic form of the disease, the only form that spreads easily from person to person,' says Western Sydney University microbiology expert Thomas Jeffries. 'But there's no evidence of further spread of the disease within the US at this stage.' Only 14 people have died of plague in the US in the past 25 years. But pneumonic plague is the most severe of the plague's three forms. All are caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria. Bubonic plague presents with flu-like symptoms and swollen lymph nodes in the groin, armpit and neck. Septicaemic plague puts the body into shock and is characterised by blackening of the fingers, toes, and nose. Both are usually caused by bites from fleas carrying the bacteria, and fatality rates vary between 30 and 60 per cent. Pneumonic plague is caused when tiny airborne droplets carry the bacteria into the lungs. There, it reproduces rapidly while attacking its host's immune system. If left untreated, the fatality rate can be as high as 100 per cent. But modern medicine has advanced considerably since medieval times. 'Plague can evoke a very emotional reaction, as many people associate plague with the Black Death, which ravaged Europe and killed millions in the 1300s,' infectious disease expert Dr Shirin Mazumder told US media. 'Although plague-related fatalities can occur, they are very uncommon, and we have highly effective antibiotic therapy to treat plague if diagnosed early.' Historic potential The 2020 COVID pandemic was caused when the SARS-CoV-2 virus mutated enough to find humans to be hospitable hosts. Similar mutations have emerged among Yersinia pestis strains over the centuries. 'This disease is one of the most important in history,' argues Jeffries. 'The Plague of Justinian (541–750CE) killed tens of millions of people in the western Mediterranean, heavily impacting the expansion of the Byzantine Empire. 'The medieval Black Death (1346–53) was also seismic, killing tens of millions of people and up to half of Europe's population. 'The third and most recent plague pandemic spanned the years 1855 until roughly 1960, peaking in the early 1900s. It was responsible for 12 million deaths, primarily in India, and even reached Australia.' However, the discovery that the cause was a flea-inhabiting bacterium has resulted in the disease being largely suppressed. 'As Y. pestis is not found in Australian animals, there is little risk here,' Jeffries states. 'Plague has not been reported in Australia in more than a century.' However, sporadic outbreaks persist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Peru, India, Central Asia, and the US, as the disease is entrenched in local rodent populations. And a fresh outbreak of plague would be a severe test of Health Secretary Kennedy's MAHA agenda. Kennedy has a long history of supporting unsubstantiated health conspiracies. He has argued that COVID-19 discriminated between ethnic groups. He has linked tap water to transgender children. He has claimed 'miasma' (a medieval term for pollutants and bad smells) is just as deadly as viruses and bacteria. 'Miasma theory emphasises preventing disease by fortifying the immune system through nutrition and reducing exposures to environmental toxins and stresses,' Kennedy wrote in his book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. Since taking office in February, the former environmental lawyer has cut thousands of jobs in his Department of Health and Human Services and shut down several advisory bodies and health programs at the Centres for Disease Control (CDC). Known unknowns 'The only means to fight a plague is honesty,' Kennedy, 71, stated in The Real Anthony Fauci. But few details about the Arizona plague fatality have yet been released. 'Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the deceased. We are keeping them in our thoughts during this difficult time,' a Coconino County Board of Supervisors spokeswoman told media. 'Out of respect for the family, no additional information about the death will be released'. The incubation period of pneumonic plague, once it settles in the lungs, can be as little as one day. An intense course of common modern antibiotics is an effective treatment - if administered quickly. Was the patient suffering from untreated bubonic or septicaemic plague, where the bacteria spread to the lungs? Or was it contracted from infectious droplets coughed up by an animal or a person? And was it caught in the countryside, or an urban environment? 'Plague infects an average of seven people a year in the west of the country (United States), due to being endemic in groundhog and prairie dog populations there,' writes Jeffries. 'The last major outbreak was 100 years ago.' Prairie dogs are easy targets for the fleas that carry Yersinia pestis. But they tend to die quickly once infected. As such, a sudden spate of Prairie dog deaths can be an early warning sign of an outbreak of the bacteria. 'The source of the exposure is still under investigation; however, the death is not related to a recent report of a prairie dog die-off,' the Coconino County's health service has told US media. But other animals regularly handled by humans can get infected. Especially cats. They can contract the bacteria by eating infected rodents or being bitten by fleas. The CDC warns that this can then be transmitted to owners when the cat sneezes.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Tower of London dig unveils possible links to Black Death
The first major excavation at the Tower of London in 30 years has uncovered what experts believe could be a Black Death burial site, hidden for centuries beneath the chapel where Anne Boleyn is buried. Archaeologists have found the remains of at least 20 individuals beneath the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula, including a collection of burials from the 14th century in what could have been a mass grave. Wiping out around three million people, out of an estimated six million in England at the time, the Black Death swept the country in the 14th century. Alfred Hawkins, curator of historic buildings at Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), which manages the Tower of London, described the findings as a 'generational opportunity to enhance our understanding of the evolution of the Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula and the buildings which stood before it'. Some of the remains, from the 12th and 13th centuries were buried in coffins, which HRP says may indicate 'high-status' burials. Alongside the coffins, a fragment of a burial shroud was found, an exceptionally rare discovery as textiles often do not survive in such conditions. Two further burial sites have also been discovered that contain 13th century charcoal pots, similar artefacts have only been found once before at an archaeological site elsewhere in England. The dig also unearthed signs of three successive chapels constructed on the site, with evidence of fire damage, medieval stonework, and rare artefacts dating back to the reign of Henry I in the 12th century. Carried out ahead of the installation of a new lift to improve accessibility to the chapel, the excavation was approved and monitored by Historic England. Dr Katie Faillace, an archaeologist based at Cardiff University's School of History, said: 'The new excavations provide the opportunity to transform our understanding of the Tower's community. 'Our work uses a biomolecular technique known as isotope analysis, which tells us about health, diet and mobility in the past, all from a tiny fragment of a tooth. 'This cutting-edge method has unparalleled potential for reconstructing the experiences of the people who lived and died at the Tower, allowing us to build a rich picture of individuals' lives.' The dig is the first major one of its kind on this specific part of the Tower, and enables a redrawing of the map of the medieval fortress which attracts almost three million visitors a year. Dr Jane Sidell, principal inspector of ancient monuments at Historic England, welcomed the findings. She said: 'Together we've struck a balance between creating lift access to a fascinating part of the Tower of London, with the complexity of carefully managing a hugely significant and archaeologically rich site.' She added: 'We're already gaining insight into the residents of the Tower in a way we have never been able to do before. 'But this is just the tip of the iceberg – there is so much more to learn through further analysis about the people as well as the buildings of one of England's most evocative historic monuments.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Science
- Telegraph
Tower of London dig unveils possible links to Black Death
The first major excavation at the Tower of London in 30 years has uncovered what experts believe could be a Black Death burial site, hidden for centuries beneath the chapel where Anne Boleyn is buried. Archaeologists have found the remains of at least 20 individuals beneath the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula, including a collection of burials from the 14th century in what could have been a mass grave. Wiping out around three million people, out of an estimated six million in England at the time, the Black Death swept the country in the 14th century. Alfred Hawkins, curator of historic buildings at Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), which manages the Tower of London, described the findings as a 'generational opportunity to enhance our understanding of the evolution of the Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula and the buildings which stood before it'. Some of the remains, from the 12th and 13th centuries were buried in coffins, which HRP says may indicate 'high-status' burials. Alongside the coffins, a fragment of a burial shroud was found, an exceptionally rare discovery as textiles often do not survive in such conditions. Two further burial sites have also been discovered that contain 13th century charcoal pots, similar artefacts have only been found once before at an archaeological site elsewhere in England. The dig also unearthed signs of three successive chapels constructed on the site, with evidence of fire damage, medieval stonework, and rare artefacts dating back to the reign of Henry I in the 12th century. Carried out ahead of the installation of a new lift to improve accessibility to the chapel, the excavation was approved and monitored by Historic England. Dr Katie Faillace, an archaeologist based at Cardiff University's School of History, said: 'The new excavations provide the opportunity to transform our understanding of the Tower's community. 'Our work uses a biomolecular technique known as isotope analysis, which tells us about health, diet and mobility in the past, all from a tiny fragment of a tooth. 'This cutting-edge method has unparalleled potential for reconstructing the experiences of the people who lived and died at the Tower, allowing us to build a rich picture of individuals' lives.' The dig is the first major one of its kind on this specific part of the Tower, and enables a redrawing of the map of the medieval fortress which attracts almost three million visitors a year. Dr Jane Sidell, principal inspector of ancient monuments at Historic England, welcomed the findings. She said: 'Together we've struck a balance between creating lift access to a fascinating part of the Tower of London, with the complexity of carefully managing a hugely significant and archaeologically rich site.' She added: 'We're already gaining insight into the residents of the Tower in a way we have never been able to do before. 'But this is just the tip of the iceberg – there is so much more to learn through further analysis about the people as well as the buildings of one of England's most evocative historic monuments.'
