Michigan health officials announced last Monday that a resident from the state was found to be positive with bubonic plague.
According to a report from MLive.com, Alisha Plescher of Marquette County revealed she fell ill on Aug. 25, after returning from her Colorado trip.
The 33-year-old Michigan resident said she went hiking in an area where there was plague activity, but she wasn't aware of being bitten by fleas. This suggests that the patient didn't contract the disease from Michigan, but rather from Colorado where plague is commonly reported.
Plescher reported to MLive that she still finds it difficult to walk due to leg pains from swollen lymph nodes. However, she noted that her fever, which reached 105 degrees, has subsided.
Health experts assured that there should be no concerns over human-to-human transmission in this new case since the disease doesn't occur naturally in the state, CBS reported.
The case in Michigan is the 14<sup>th case of plague recorded in the country for 2015, reports stated. This year, there are already four deaths from the disease recorded, including an elderly patient from Utah.
Most cases of plague reported for this year include those from northern Arizona, southern Colorado, and California, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One isolated case was seen in Illinois, which is reported to be lab-associated.
In Colorado alone, two deaths have been recorded in summer. Taylor Thomas Gaes died in June and another unidentified patient died in early August.
The plague is considered a rare, fatal disease brought about by fleas that carry the bacteria Yersinia pestis. Wild rodents from rural and semirural western U.S. regions usually harbor the infected fleas.
The bubonic plague is no longer viewed as deadly as it was centuries ago. The condition is easily treated with the use of antibiotics, especially when it's detected earlier.
