A person in northern Arizona has died from a case of pneumonic plague, local health officials said.

The unidentified patient, from Coconino County, showed up to the Flagstaff Medical Center Emergency Department and died there the same day, Northern Arizona Healthcare said in a statement. It is unclear when the death occurred.

The hospital noted that “appropriate initial management” and “attempts to provide life-saving resuscitation” was performed, but “the patient did not recover.”

Rapid diagnostic testing led to a presumptive diagnosis of Yersinia pestis.

  • 13igTyme@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    In case people didn’t know, we usually have a handful of cases of the plague every year. This isn’t news.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      If it’s a handful then each one is at least moderately news worthy in normal times

      With the new brain worm onncharge of healthcare timea that we’re in, I see this as a screaming emergency news

      • 13igTyme@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The Bubonic plague is easily treated with a round of antibiotics. Very rarely does someone die. This person waited too long.

    • ghostlychonk@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Between one and two thousand cases of the plague are reported globally every year. Being in Arizona, they may have gotten it from being in contact with black-tailed prairie dogs.

      • thanks AV@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Well thats good at least, another commenter mentioned this guy must have been sitting on it for weeks to die the same day he got admitted. We can breathe for a few more weeks.

    • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      Plague is pretty easily treated with antibiotics if caught in time. The fact this dude died the same day as he went to the hospital, I’d wager he waited too long to seek medical treatment.

      • Nasan@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        “Hey MAGA, looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the riverrrrr!”

  • El_guapazo@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Why didn’t they seek help at the onset of the illness? They wait for the miraculous cure from modern medicine. Just like that old man that died from rabies.

    • hraegsvelmir@ani.social
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      3 days ago

      Pneumonic plague is a particularly aggressive form of the plague, where you basically need to be treated within the first 24 hours of showing symptoms in order to have much chance of surviving, and you can die in as little as a day and a half. Initial symptoms include fever, weakness, nausea and headaches, aka the same symptoms as probably >90% of the illnesses most of us contract, so I can see how it would be easy to underestimate the severity of it, until you start coughing up blood.

      Further, while I don’t know this person’s circumstances, in a country where there’s no guarantee of either universal healthcare or paid sick time and protections for workers who call off work when ill, I can easily see how someone might say “Eh, it’s just a cold, but I’ll tough it out, because I can’t afford to go to the doctor and/or miss work,” when they notice some of the milder and less remarkable symptoms, then wake up the next day coughing up blood and already be screwed.

      • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        There are accounts from the Black Death saying some person was fine in the morning and dead by sundown in the street after coughing up blood.