TMBRA - Rider Board

[Anonymous]

My wife is an ICU Nurse, and she got this email last night. I think she forwarded it to me since our next race is out in that direction.


Houston Area Health Alert Network-zoonotic plague activity in West Texas
this message is forwarded from the Office of the State Epidemiologist
There have been several plague outbreaks in Southern Plains rats and cottontail rabbits in southern Midland and northern Upton Counties. Tissue samples from several animals were positive for Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague. At present, the foci of these zoonotic outbreaks are well demarcated in a rural area. You are being provided this alert as a situation awareness to increase vigilance for potential human cases of plague.

Transmission:
Yersinia pestis is transmitted through the bite of an infected flea, entry through a break in the skin after contact with the tissues or body fluids of an infected animal, or by inhaling contaminated droplets from an infected person or animal (especially cats).

Clinical:
The incubation period for bubonic plague is 2-6 days. Initial signs and symptoms include fever, headache, and general illness followed by the development of a very painful, hot to the touch, purplish, swollen regional lymph node, called a “bubo”. If untreated the disease rapidly progresses and the bacteria spread to the blood stream, resulting in plague septicemia. If still untreated, the infection will spread to the lungs producing a plague pneumonia which can result in high levels of transmission. Primary pneumonic plague can have an incubation period as short as 1-3 days and result in a fulminate pneumonia with high fever, cough, and bloody sputum.

Treatment:
CFR approaches 90% in untreated cases, and can be as high as 50% in treated cases. Initiation of treatment within 24 hours of onset of symptoms offers the greatest promise of recovery. Antibiotic therapy should begin immediately upon clinical suspicion, and following collection of laboratory specimens. Drugs of choice are streptomycin or gentamycin but the tetracylines (including doxycycline) and chloramphenicol (especially for plague meningitis) are also effective.

Laboratory Testing:
The preferred specimen for microscopic examination and culture is material from the bubo, or sputum in the case of pneumonic form. Gram stains will reveal bipolar-staining, gram negative, rods. In cases of septicemia, a series of blood specimens taken 10-30 minutes apart may be used to isolate Y. pestis. For pneumonic plague, collect sputum/throat smears for fluorescent antibody (FA) testing; bronchial/tracheal washings may be collected for culture. All samples should be taken before the initiation of antibiotic treatment where possible.


Please call the Texas Department of State Health Services at 915-834-7782 in El Paso, or 432-571-4118 in Midland during business hours or 1-888-847-6892 after business hours to report a suspected or confirmed case of plague.

The Office of the State Epidemiologist is available to confer, as may be desired:

State Epidemiologist, Dr. Alex Hathaway: (512) 458-7729
Deputy State Epidemiologist, Julie Rawlings: (512) 458-7228

[the toninator]

so we should avoid bitting the heads off of rats for a while?