Plague

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Medical Author:

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.

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Medical Editor:

Mary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP

Mary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP

Mary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Michigan State University. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt Medical School, and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Indiana University.

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Medical Editor:

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.

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• A bacterium, Yersinia pestis, causes the disease in animals and humans.
• Plague is a disease that is transmitted from infected animals, usually by fleas, to humans. Plague then may be transmitted from humans to others by direct contact or by touching or breathing droplets that contain the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Untreated plague causes much suffering and deaths in humans.
• Symptoms of plague vary and are grouped into three types:
• Bubonic plague: The lymph nodes become swollen, tender, and are termed buboes. The patient may also develop fever, chills, and weakness.
• Septicemic plague: In general, septicemic plague patients do not develop buboes. Instead symptoms may include fever, chills, weakness, bleeding under the skin, abdominal pain, and septic shock with low blood pressure.
• Pneumonic plague: Shortness of breath, cough (sometimes with bloody sputum), and chest pain quickly develop along with weakness, fever, and headaches.
• Plague is preliminarily diagnosed by physical examination and by cultures of blood or other sites; definitive diagnosis is done by immunological tests that identify Y. pestis specifically.
• Plague is treated by several types of antibiotics.
• The history of plague infections of humans is extensive, and plague bacteria are considered to be biological weapons by some governments.
• Although plague is endemic in some animal populations, fleas can transfer Y. pestis from animals to man; once a person is infected, the disease can easily be transmitted to other humans by direct and indirect contact with droplets or material touched by the infected person.
• Prevention of plague is done by eliminating areas where animals, especially rodents, congregate and by avoiding the fleas the rodents carry. Some infections can be prevented by taking antibiotics soon after exposure to the disease.
• There are no commercially available vaccines against plague; however, there is a small amount available from the U.S. government for researchers who work with Y. pestis.
• Ongoing research includes trying to develop a plague vaccine with few side effects; others are exploring the Y. pestis genome for insights into its pathogenic mechanisms.