Fleas become carriers of the bacteria by feeding on chipmunks, prairie dogs, ground squirrels, and other rodents that are infected with the bacteria. In nature, plague is a disease of wild rodents, but can also infect humans and other mammals. When a bubo occurs, the form is called bubonic plague. Another rare form is called plague septicemia, in which the bacteria enter the bloodstream. The bacteria in some cases can spread to the lungs causing a severe respiratory illness called pneumonic plague.
Symptoms appear between one and seven days after being infected, but a person usually becomes ill with plague within two to six days. Symptoms of plague include a painful, swollen lymph node (called a bubo), fever, chills, tiredness, muscle aches, nausea, sore throat, and headache. Most reported cases occur in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Currently in the United States, plague occurs mostly in the western United States from the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast. Plague is known as the infamous Black Death of medieval Europe, which is believed to have killed approximately one-third of the world’s population in the 14th century. Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Plague is a reportable disease in Oklahoma.
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