Marin/Sonoma Mosquito & Vector Control District
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Wednesday, June 2, 1999; B2

Plague Warning in Mendocino County

By ANDREW LaMAR
Press Democrat Bureau

UKIAH — Authorities said Tuesday the bacterial disease known as the plague, which ravaged Europe in the 14th century, is alive in Mendocino County and cautioned the publlc to avoid dead animals, rodents and fleas.
    However, one county health official said the danger of catching the plague is extremely low because it tends to be carried by rodents and fleas in remote rural areas.
    "It's not real common, but it's not uncommon either," said Linda Brawley, the county's communicable disease control officer.
    Brawley downplayed the news, received last week, that a mountain lion captured in April by a trapper near Philo carried the plague. As part of a state program, trapped animals are routinely tested for diseases, and in the case of the mountain lion, lab results revealed it had the bacterial disease that causes the bubonic plague in people.

    The plague turns up in Mendocino County every few years in trapped animals, Brawley said. The disease flourishes in rodents that live in California's foothills, plateaus, mountains and foggy coastal regions, including the North Coast.
    The most common way the disease is transmitted is by fleas which have acquired it from sick rodents. People can also catch it directly from sick animals, such as cats, if fluid or blood from the animal comes into contact with their blood or mucous membranes.
    The plague results in symptoms similar to that of the flu — fatigue, muscle soreness, chills and a fever. The symptoms, though, will continue to get worse and not abate after a few days as is the case with the flu.
    If not detected and treated with antibiotics, the bubonic plague can turn into pneumonic plague and prove fatal.
    Human cases of the plague are very rare, and the last urban outbreak of the disease in California occurred in Los Angeles in 1924 and 1925.