Patient left ‘draining pus-filled boils’ after catching BUBONIC PLAGUE from pet cat in the US
A PERSON in the US could have caught the bubonic plague from a house cat, health officials have warned.
The unnamed victim is Oregon's first case of the deadly medieval disease in eight years.
Dr Richard Fawcett, the state health officer, told the patient who caught the nasty bug became "very sick".
Usually, an infection of this kind starts with flu-like symptoms, including fatigue, fever, chills, and a headache.
Sufferers will develop abdominal pain, diarrhoea and vomiting, and some people bleed from their mouths, noses or rectums.
The recent infection, however, had progressed to the point of draining pus-filled boils, called a "bubo", which is a rare symptom nowadays.
Read more on black death
The patient has since been treated with antibiotics, and are said to be responding well.
Their close contacts have also been treated to curb the possibility of further spread.
The infectious bacterial disease is carried by wild rodents and their fleas.
Officials have not said how the infection spread from the cat to the owner, but if the cat was bitten by infected fleas, the pet might have brought the infection or fleas home, exposing the owner, too.
Most read in Health
Alternatively, the owner may have been in contact with the cat's contaminated fluids.
Cats are particularly susceptible to the plague because their bodies have a hard time clearing the infection, and they're more likely than some other pets to chase and capture rodents that carry infected fleas.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates there are between 1,000 and 2,000 cases of plague around the world every year.
The disease is easily treatable with modern medicine - but left untreated, most of those infected will die within a week.
In the 14th Century, the Black Death - a collection of plagues including the bubonic plague - tore through the globe, making it the most deadly recorded pandemic in history.
It killed 200million people across Africa, Asia and Europe, wiping out 60 per cent of Europe's population in its path.
Though many believe the medieval disease is long gone, some countries still suffer deadly outbreaks of the bubonic plague due to animals carrying the bacteria.
The plague has been reported in the United States, Peru, China, Bolivia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Russia.
NHS Fit to Travel advises travellers to use insect repellents when near nature, and to avoid any close contact with sick or dead animals and crowded areas where plague has recently been reported.
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.
Scientists now know the plague was spread by a bacillus known as .
The bacteria can travel through the air as well as through the bites of infected fleas and rats.
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.