It's hard to believe that the problem still exists today but fortunately the odds of surviving it are very high. What used to wipe out cities and villages is now very treatable, thankfully. Even so, it's still creepy enough to hear of new cases. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.
Health officials have confirmed that an Oregon man has the plague after he was bitten while trying to take a dead rodent from the mouth of a stray cat.
The unidentified Prineville, Ore., man was in critical condition on Friday. He is suffering from a blood-borne version of the disease that wiped out at least one-third of Europe in the 14th century — that one, the bubonic plague, affects lymph nodes.
There is an average of seven human plague cases in the U.S. each year. A map maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that most cases since the 1970s have been in the West, primarily the southwest.
