Plague – Madagascar

Pneumonic plague outbreak in Antananarivo, Madagascar with seven dead.

Symptoms include cough and shortness of breath. There are also sharp changes in the affected respiratory organs, which is followed by fevers and possibly coma.
On the first day of the disease one can experience, chills, headaches, lower back pain, weakness, nausea and vomiting, redness and puffiness of the face, fever ups, tight chest, difficulty breathing, anxiety and rapid pulse. Patients approaching death reported shallow breathing and pronounced weakness. A weak cough is recorded, the sputum contains streaks of blood and a significant amount of plague microbes.

Between August 25th-30th, seven people (including a child) died from this pneumonic plague. 3 of them passed in a medical facility with the rest of the disease being diagnosed during a postmortem examination. There are 22 patients are being treated.

Cases of pneumonic plague are concentrated near the capital, in the center of the island.Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Symptoms include fever, weakness and headache. Usually this begins one to seven days after exposure. In the bubonic form there is also swelling of lymph nodes, while in the septicemic form tissues may turn black and die, and in the pneumonic form shortness of breath, cough and chest pain may occur.

Bubonic and septicemic plague are generally spread by flea bites or handling an infected animal. The pneumonic form is generally spread between people through the air via infectious droplets.

Plague has historically occurred in large outbreaks, with the best known being the Black Death in the 14th century which resulted in greater than 50 million dead.