An electron micrograph depicts a mass of Yersinia pestis bacteria, which cause the plague. A man hospitalized in Bend is critically ill and is believed to have the disease which devastated Europe in the Middle Ages but is now rare.Oregon health officials confirmed on Thursday that a man hospitalized in Bend is critically ill with the plague.
Emilio DeBess, state public health veterinarian, said
, that the unidentified man had become infected with
, the bacterium that devastated Europe during the Middle Ages.
The man is still in critical condition at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend. He was hospitalized a week ago, and his condition remains about the same, DeBess said. His identity has not been released, though Karen Yeargain, communicable disease coordinator for Crook County, said he lives outside Prineville in rural Crook County.
DeBess said he was infected while trying to take a mouse out of the mouth of a stray cat that his family had befriended. Either the mouse or the cat bit him. The body of the feline is being sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.
DeBess is currently in Prineville conducting an investigation. He's collected blood samples from two dogs and another cat that lives with the man's family. DeBess also collected blood samples from neighbors' pets and from animals in the local shelter to determine whether the area has a plague problem. The disease is carried by fleas, which can infect animals or humans.
DeBess said the results from those blood tests should be in at the end of next week.
The plague is associated with the Middle Ages but the bacterium has never disappeared though the disease is rare in Oregon. Five people in Oregon -- including the man currently in the hospital -- have been sickened by the plague since 1995. All of them recovered. But since 1934, four people in Oregon have died from the plague.
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