Health officials fear bubonic plague outbreak after teenager who ate infected Bar-B-Q marmot dies

[dixiegrrrrl]

Ok, I know the story is a serious one
but the bar-B-Q marmot did give me a long pause..who could imagine getting the Black Death from cooking a marmot?

Here is the story:

Health officials fear an outbreak of bubonic plague in central Asia after a teenage boy died from the disease and three more were admitted to hospital in Kyrgyzstan.

Temirbek Isakunov, a 15-year-old from a mountain village near the border with Kazakhstan, reportedly died from the disease last week after eating an infected barbecued marmot. Kyrgyzstan's emergency ministry said a young woman and two children from a different village who came into contact with Isakunov were hospitalised on Tuesday with the high fever and swelling around the neck and armpits characteristic of bubonic plague, local news outlets reported.

A total of 131 people, including 33 medical personnel, have been quarantined, although none of them have yet exhibited symptoms of the disease, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in Kyrgyzstan reported. The health ministry continues to find and quarantine people who came into contact with the teenager, according to its director.

Kazakhstan has stepped up its border control with Kyrgyzstan and is operating quarantine points in light of the possible outbreak, the news agency Tengrinews reported. The Kazakh health ministry is searching out people who might have come into contact with the dead teenager, and is also determining where animal carriers of the disease might be moving between the two countries, according to a ministry official.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/27/bubonic-plague-outbreak-feared-central-asia

[pscot]

1. There are plague deaths every year

There was a study years ago that found plague bacilli in fleas from voles collected in the Crocker Alps, just south of San Francisco.

[phantom power]

2. I have this fear, where plague bacteria acquire broad antibiotic immunity, and then...

fleas acquire broad insecticidal immunity.

[mainer]

3. I would think that, cooked properly, the infectious agent would be killed.

He must have caught it in the processing of cooking it, when the fleas jumped off the cooking marmot onto him.

[Javaman]

4. Just finished a great book called.

"The Great Mortality" about the black plague.

Marmots are cited as the carrier of the flea for original outbreak of the great plague.

more recently, though, in the 19teens there was a run on Marmot pelts and as such, everyone and their uncle started shooting and trapping marmots. when all was said and done, 60K had died of plague.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/g/j/gjs4/textbooks/175/graphics/Ch5/02.htm

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Fascinating.....

Almost all popular histories of the plague credit rats as the carriers.

Will see if I can track that book down...thanks.

[Javaman]

6. Here's the book...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Mortality-Intimate-Devastating/dp/0060006935

The infected fleas made the jump to black rats roughly upon arriving in the middle east.

It's an amazing book. I highly recommend it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Thank you...