Pneumonic Plague Cluster, Uganda, 2004

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Begier, Elizabeth M. ; Asiki, Gershim ; Anywaine, Zaccheus ; Yockey, Brook ; Schriefer, Martin E. ; Aleti, Philliam ; Ogen-Odoi, Asaph ; Staples, J. Erin ; Sexton, Christopher ; Bearden, Scott W. ; Kool, Jacob L.
• Description:
  The public and clinicians have long-held beliefs that pneumonic plague is highly contagious; inappropriate alarm and panic have occurred during outbreaks. We investigated communicability in a naturally occurring pneumonic plague cluster. We defined a probable pneumonic plague case as an acute-onset respiratory illness with bloody sputum during December 2004 in Kango Subcounty, Uganda. A definite case was a probable case with laboratory evidence of Yersinia pestis infection. The cluster (1 definite and 3 probable cases) consisted of 2 concurrent index patient-caregiver pairs. Direct fluorescent antibody microscopy and polymerase chain reaction testing on the only surviving patient's sputum verified plague infection. Both index patients transmitted pneumonic plague to only 1 caregiver each, despite 23 additional untreated close contacts (attack rate 8%). Person-to-person transmission was compatible with transmission by respiratory droplets, rather than aerosols, and only a few close contacts, all within droplet range, became ill.
• Subjects:
  Adult Contact Tracing Disease Outbreaks Female Humans Male Population Surveillance Research
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 12(3):460-467.
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Uganda
• Location:
  Africa
• Volume:
  12
• Issue:
  3
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:9f9fa5323b2292c1224f23d9e8531c5d479284d78f2b0efbc1c471e60b656e79
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/7900/cdc_7900_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 271.33 KB ]