How politics and an earthquake led to prairie dog plague

[struggle4progress]

By Tara C. Smith | February 18, 2013 |

John Tull didn’t know he was the heir to a century-old legacy. In 2002, he and his wife boarded a plane from their Santa Fe, New Mexico home and flew to New York City. Shortly after arrival, Tull and his wife both felt ill, with high fevers and odd swellings. In the post-9/11 aftermath, terrorism was feared—the couple was diagnosed with bubonic plague ...

It’s not conclusively known how Y. pestis first entered the City by the Bay. Plague had broken out in several ports in 1899: Hong Kong, Honolulu, Tokyo, and Sydney; and Marine Hospital Service personnel (the precursor to the National Institutes of Health, led by Dr. Joseph Kinyoun) were kept busy inspecting passengers on potentially infected ships.

Speculation has focused on a steamer called the Australia, which arrived from plague-ridden Honolulu on January 2, 1900. Though the passengers appeared to be healthy, leaving Kinyoun no choice but to allow the Australia to dock, no one can be sure if the ship’s four-legged inhabitants were harboring the deadly bacterium, and subsequently spread it amongst their San Francisco kin. Reports surfaced of an abundance of dead and dying rats in the early months of 1900, but as the epidemiology of plague was still not well-understood at that time, none were tested for the bacillus. The role of rats and their fleas in transmission of plague would not be confirmed until 1905.

Regardless of its origin, plague officially hit the city on March 6, 1900, with the death of a Chinese immigrant named Wong Chut King. King had been suffering from high fevers, and his lymph nodes were horribly swollen and tender to the touch. Delirious, he entered a coma as his organs shut down from the bacterium’s toxins, and died shortly thereafter. Before bacterial cultures were even confirmed, police descended on Chinatown, removing any white inhabitants and sealing off the borders—Chinatown was quarantined, beginning an eight-year struggle that pitted whites against Chinese, scientists against politicians, and state versus federal government ...

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/02/18/how-politics-and-an-earthquake-led-to-prairie-dog-plague/

[pipoman]

1. Interesting..

Hutchinson KS has several dog towns right in the town..they've been there for as long as I can remember with nobody getting the plague (hundreds of dogs). Now there is a story about the dogs there..several years ago the city decided to build a park with ball diamonds where a prairie dog town was. The plan was to poison them as has been done before when they, like all rodents, became over populated. A wealthy local woman said no and sued for an injunction, which she won. She had to move the dogs within 6 months. She promoted, organized, had bake sales with school children, and so on getting the money and support to do the removal. She located an "abandoned prairie dog town" on Quivera National Wildlife Refuge where she planned to move the dogs. Finally the day came..a giant vacuum was brought in and many dogs were vacced from their burrows. They were caged and taken to Quivera. A week later, wardens from Quivera said there were none of the dogs left...apparently a nearby family of badgers had cleaned out the occupants of the town previously and were the beneficiaries of the attempt to move the dogs...

[DhhD]

2. Fleas can carry the plague bacteria in their intestines during warm weather.

During warm weather, food waste is excreted causing no infection in anyone bitten by the flea. When the weather is cold, the flea becomes constipated and the bacteria can back up into the stomach and mouth parts. When the bacteria are in the stomach and mouth parts of the flea, the microorganism can be transmitted to the human or other hosts when they are bitten for the blood meal.

Long ago people in Europe began getting sick about October of Black Death Plague years. Trade caravans from Africa where the weather is warm all year, was the source of the rats that carried the inflected fleas.

Santa Fe is an old trade route destination, especially since the Spanish were in control of the colony for many years.

[DhhD]

3. There may be some intermediary vector also.

[Warpy]

4. Human plague is still extremely rare here

and is usually carried to humans by their cats or dogs. The harsh winters at this altitude keep plague season limited. There are few rodents and fewer fleas around when it's frigid.

Any dead rodents are supposed to be bagged and turned over to either animal control or the local board of health for testing in order to predict the severity of the season.