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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1985

Nineteen cases of plague in Arizona. A spectrum including ecthyma gangrenosum due to plague and plague in pregnancy.

We review the cases of 19 successfully treated plague patients, with emphasis on the clinical and epidemiologic features of the disease. Proper staining and culturing of bubo aspirates; prompt institution of streptomycin, chloramphenicol or tetracycline therapy in presumptive cases, and supportive care are the crucial factors in the treatment of plague. This disease should be considered in patients in a toxic condition who have lymphadenitis, pneumonia or septic shock and who have been in endemic areas within the past ten days.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

[Epidemiology of the plague. Changes in the concept in research of infection chains since the discovery of the plague pathogen in 1894].

Three major plague epidemics have been recorded worldwide up to this day: the Justinian plague in the 6th century, the Black Death in the 14th century and the recent 20th century pandemic. The latter occurred at a time of advanced microbiological knowledge which permitted the etiology and the modes of transmission and spread of this bacterial infectious disease to be clarified. The present thesis is an attempt to describe the changes in plague research that occurred during that period of time. While the German, Austrian, British, Russian and Egyptian plague Commissions studying the Indian plague outbreak after 1896 contributed only little to the fundamental epidemiological knowledge on plague, several individual researchers succeeded in discovering some of the key facts in the etiology and transmission of the disease. Alexandre Yersin discovered the pathogenic agent of plague (Hongkong 1894), E.H. Hankin, P.L. Simond (Bombay 1898) and J.A. Thompson (Sydney 1900) recognized the role of rat plague, M. Ogata (Formosa 1897) and P.L. Simond (Bombay 1898) observed the transmission of the disease by fleas, and A.W. Bacot and C.J. Martin (1914) described the specific mechanism of transmission of plague. Accordingly, fleas transmit plague from rat to man, the efficiency of the flea as a vector depending on a blocking phenomenon specific of each flea species. The Indian rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) has been recognized the most efficient vector. Although the involvement of wild rodents was already known shortly after the turn of this century, the concept of sylvatic plague (the plague of wild rodents) as opposed to murine plague (the plague of commensal rodents) only emerged between 1920 and 1950. It led to taking stock of all hosts and vectors of the disease and thereby defining the natural foci of plague. According to this concept plague is primarily a disease of wild rodents which have been carrying it together with their fleas since ever. As man and urban rats only become infected occasionally, they do not constitute chronic foci. The occurrence of persistent foci rather depends on the interaction of resistant and sensitive wild rodents (burrowing animals) as was discovered by French researchers in the Middle East as late as the 1950s and 1960s. The concept of rodent-dependent transmission was somewhat attenuated by the discovery of direct interhuman transmission by French researchers between 1930 and 1965.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1983

Ecology of plague in Africa: response of indigenous wild rodents to experimental plague infection.

The Mastomys natalensis species complex, subdivided into genetically distinct species having diploid chromosome numbers 2n = 32 and 2n = 36, is a reservoir for several zoonoses including Lassa fever and plague. This report describes a study to determine whether these sibling species and three other rodent species have different potential as reservoirs for plague. It was found that M. natalensis (2n = 32) was significantly more resistant to experimental plague infection (50% survived inoculation with 120 000 Yersinia pseudotuberculosis subsp. pestis) than was M. coucha (2n = 36) (none of which survived doses of 190 Y. pseudotuberculosis subsp.pestis). In descending order of resistance were M. natalensis, Aethomys chrysophilus, M. coucha, Tatera leucogaster and A. namaquensis. No A. namaquensis survived inoculation of 10 or more plague bacilli.Previous reports on susceptibility to plague or other infections, which were based exclusively on findings in the universally distributed laboratory-bred Mastomys, are thus not necessarily applicable to the M. natalensis species as a whole but probably only to M. coucha. The Y. pseudotuberculosis subsp. pestis fraction-1 passive haemagglutination test appeared to be relatively insensitive in that only 5 out of 47 animals surviving experimental plague infection showed specific antibodies 6 weeks after challenge.The geographic distribution of human plague in southern Africa corresponds closely with that of the plague-susceptible species, M. coucha, while the resistant species, M. natalensis, predominates in areas where human plague has not been recorded. The role of A. namaquensis in the ecology of plague needs to be carefully studied and its possible importance in plague research should be investigated further.

Africa↗
PubMed2004

The cause of the plague of Athens: plague, typhoid, typhus, smallpox, or measles?

The plague of Athens raged for 4 years and resulted in the defeat of Athens. The cause of the plague of Athens continues to be debated. Infectious diseases most often cited as causes of the plague include influenza, epidemic typhus, typhoid fever, bubonic plague, smallpox, and measles. Thucydides provides the only available description of the plague of Athens. Given the nuances of the translation, bubonic plague, smallpox, and measles are the most likely causes of the plague. In my view, measles is the most likely cause of the plague of Athens.

Communicable Diseases↗
PubMed1998

Plague that never was: a review of the alleged plague outbreaks in India in 1994.

Judging by WHO criteria, there was not a single case in India in 1994 that could be taken as a confirmed case of plague. Both clinical and epidemiological features of the illness alleged to be plague were not at all compatible with those of plague-both bubonic and pneumonic types. The bacteriologic and serological evidence was limited to a few cases, and doubtful. PCR is a highly sensitive test, but the specificity of PCR for plague was not verified under field conditions in India. Just by the demonstration of the presence of a causative organism in the environment or in the body tissue, one cannot substantiate occurrence of an infection or disease in man. In view of the assessment and review presented in this paper, one can conclude that the outbreaks of illness that resembled plague during late 1994 in Beed District and Surat were certainly not due to plague. If the Mamla outbreak had not been declared to be plague, the probability of the Surat illness being labeled as plague was negligible. Whatever happened provides a very important lesson of the harm that can occur nationally and globally from decisions based on inadequate or incorrect information.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

[Doxycycline in the prevention of experimental plague induced by plague microbe variants].

A comparative study was performed on the efficacy of doxycycline in experimental plague infection induced in albino mice by strain 231 of the plague microbe and its variant 231 Fra- deprived of the ability to produce the fraction I antigen. It was shown that the LD50 for strain 231 during animal treatment with doxycycline was significantly higher than that for variant 231 Fra-. Prophylaxis of the plague infection caused by the Fra- forms of the plague microbe required significantly higher doses of doxycycline (ED50) than that of the infection caused by the Fra+ forms. The use of the daily maximum permissible doses of doxycycline (50 to 100 mg/kg a day) for 10 days in treatment of albino mice infected with the strain Fra- did not provide animal survival at the level higher than 60 to 70 per cent while the survival rate in the animals infected with the strain Fra+ of the plague microbe and treated according to the same scheme amounted to 90-100 per cent. The lower therapeutic efficacy of doxycycline in the treatment of the infection caused by the fractionless variant of the plague microbe should be considered in development of rational schemes for prophylaxis and treatment of plague.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

[Isepamycin in prophylaxis and treatment of experimental plague due to FI+ and FI- variants of plague microbe].

The efficacy of isepamycin vs. other aminoglycosides was studied in vitro and on albino mice with experimental plague due to natural antigen valuable strains of the plague microbe and the pathogen variants deprived of the ability to produce the capsular antigen fraction I (FI- phenotype). The MICs of isepamycin for the strains of the plague microbe (20 FI+ and 20FI-) were 1.0-4.0 mg\l, that did not differ from those of streptomycin, kanamycin, amikacin and tobramycin. The ED50 of isepamycin in the prophylaxis and treatment of the experimental plague of the mice had no statistically significant differences from the ED50 of the other aminoglycosides. The efficacy index of isepamycin was > 10(4), that did not differ from that of streptomycin, amikacin and gentamicin, irrespective of the strain phenotype (Y. pestis 231 FI+ or Y. pestis 231 FI-). The same as the other aminoglycosides, isepamycin in doses equivalent to the human average daily doses, protected 80-100% of the albino mice from death when used in the prophylaxis and therapy of plague irrespective of the strain phenotype. The results of the study made it possible to consider isepamycin as an agent promising for the prophylaxis and treatment of plague.

Aminoglycosides↗
PubMed1976

Bubonic plague from exposure to a rabbit: a documented case, and a review of rabbit-associated plague cases in the United States.

A 62-year-old woman developed bubonic plague with an epitrochlear bubo one to two days after skinning two cottontail rabbits. The implicated rabbits were later recovered from the patient's freezer, and Yersinia pestis was isolated from marrows of both rabbits. Although human plague cases in the United States have occasionally been traced to exposure to wild rabbits, this is the first documentation of plague infection in the actual rabbits to which the patient was exposed. All reported cases of rabbit-associated plague in the United States were then reviewed. Eight cases were characterized by direct exposure to rabbit tissues. Seven of the eight cases occurred in adult males who had hunted rabbits during winter months in plague-endemic areas. These patients had upper extremity buboes, and the case-fatality ration for the group was 50%. Three other cases in which rabbit exposure was indirect or its role less clear, were also analyzed.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Is not plague a "protonosis"? (the role of Protozoa in the epizootiology of plague)].

The author expounds the idea that soil protozoa, whose vegetative forms and cysts can harbor the plague agent for fairly prolonged periods of time, can be a major player in the epizootiology of plague. It is also postulated that the symbiotic protozoa of the digestive tract of rodents and lagomorpha can also be a reservoir of the plague agent. If this is so, among apparent epizootic cycles in mammalians in wild plague foci one should look for Yersinia pestis in the protozoa from the burrows of their primary and secondary carriers. Because parasitism of bacteria in one-celled animals is essentially epizootic, plague epizootics are presumed to be a permanent process.

Amoeba↗