MEAD GRUVER Associated Press writer | Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - The Wyoming Department of Health said Monday that it was investigating how a Boy Scout who visited northwest Wyoming became infected with bubonic plague.
The 18-year-old from Connecticut was hospitalized but now is recovering at home, according to Deron Smith, spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America.
Smith said there were no other reports of plague-like symptoms among the hundreds of other members of the Boy Scouts' honor society, the Order of the Arrow, who built trails and did other volunteer work in the Jackson area a month ago.
"Obviously the safety and protection of our participants is our number one priority," Smith said. "We always keep that in mind."
It's unknown where the young man may have contracted the disease. Health officials in Connecticut told their Wyoming counterparts about the case late last week.
Wyoming Department of Health spokeswoman Kim Deti said Wyoming is the focus of the investigation because Connecticut has had no bubonic plague cases - in either people or animals - in recent history.
If the teenager did get the disease in Wyoming, it would be the first bubonic plague case in a human in the state since 2004. Wyoming has had only five confirmed plague cases since 1978.
Bubonic plague causes fever, headache and exhaustion and is spread by rodents, rabbits and fleas. Deti said health officials plan to look for and test any dead rodents, rodent nests and fleas where the Boy Scouts were working.
Deti said pinpointing where the Boy Scout got the disease would be difficult because the Boy Scouts visited much of northwest Wyoming, including Yellowstone National Park.
"It probably would be pretty difficult for us to say, `Yup, that's where he got it,' because you're talking about a pretty wide area," Deti said.
Deti said people can avoid getting bubonic plague by avoiding rodents and rodent nests and burrows, keeping pets away from rodent nests and burrows, and wearing protective gloves when handling sick or dead animals.
Bubonic plague is infamous for outbreaks that killed millions of people in Europe in the Middle Ages. Some 10 to 20 cases occur in the United States each year. About one in seven cases in the U.S. is fatal.
The World Health Organization reports 1,000 to 3,000 cases worldwide every year. The disease usually is treatable with antibiotics if caught early.