California health officials are investigating another possible case of plague in a tourist from Georgia who fell ill after visiting Yosemite National Park, the second case in less than a month.
The California Department of Public Health on Tuesday said that “the presumptive positive case” of plague occurred on a patient who visited Yosemite, the Sierra National Forest and surrounding areas early this month.
The US Centers for Disease Control is testing the person, whose gender and age were not released, officials said.
US Public Health Service doctor Danielle Buttke, who is in Yosemite investigating the outbreak, says no new areas have been closed in the national park.
A child fell ill with the plague after camping with his family at Yosemite’s Crane Flat Campground in mid-July. The park reopened Crane Flat last week after treating it for four days with an insecticide.
Park officials closed the Tuolumne Meadows Campground from noon Monday through noon Friday last week so authorities can treat the area with a flea-killing insecticide after two squirrels died of plague in the area.
Campers had their reservations canceled at the 304-site campground so the insecticide can be sprayed into rodent “burrow holes,” the health department said.
Plague is carried by squirrels, chipmunks and other small rodents and is spread by their fleas, but transmission between people is rare.
“Although the presence of plague has been confirmed in wild rodents over the past two weeks at Crane Flat and Tuolumne Meadows campgrounds in Yosemite, the risk to human health remains low,” the health department said in a statement. “Action to protect human and wildlife health by closing and treating campgrounds was taken out of an abundance of caution.”
Officials say people should never feed squirrels and other small rodents. Campers should avoid setting up near rodent burrows, and hikers should wear long pants and use bug repellent to keep fleas away.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
New Zealand is open to expanding its frigate fleet beyond its current two vessels, with New Zealand Minister of Defence Chris Penk saying “no options are off the table” as the government weighs buying new warships from Japan or the UK. The government yesterday said it is looking to replace its two aging Anzac-class frigates, which were both commissioned almost 30 years ago. The UK’s Type 31 and Japan’s Mogami-class warships are the options under consideration. Speaking in an interview, Penk said there is potential to increase the number of frigates the nation purchases. “We need a certain amount of capability as a
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS