A scanning electron micrograph depicting a mass of Yersinia pestis bacteria
Specialty
Infectious disease
Symptoms
Fever, headache, shortness of breath, cough, hemoptysis[1]
Usual onset
3 to 7 days[2]
Causes
Yersinia pestis[3]
Risk factors
Rodents[3]
Diagnostic method
Sputum testing[1]
Treatment
Antibiotics[1]
Prognosis
A case-fatality ratio of 30% to 60% for the bubonic type, and invariably fatal for the pneumonic kind when left untreated.[4]
Frequency
Rare[2]
Pneumonic plague is a severe lung infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.[3] Symptoms include fever, headache, shortness of breath, chest pain, and coughing.[1] They typically start about three to seven days after exposure.[2] It is one of three forms of plague, the other two being septicemic plague and bubonic plague.[3]
The pneumonic form may occur following an initial bubonic or septicemic plague infection.[3] It may also result from breathing in airborne droplets from another person or animal infected with pneumonic plague.[1] The difference between the forms of plague is the location of infection; in pneumonic plague the infection is in the lungs, in bubonic plague the lymph nodes, and in septicemic plague within the blood.[3] Diagnosis is by testing the blood, sputum, or fluid from a lymph node.[1]
While vaccines are being developed, in most countries they are not yet commercially available.[1][3] Prevention is by avoiding contact with infected rodents, people, or cats.[1][3] It is recommended that those infected be isolated from others.[2] Treatment of pneumonic plague is with antibiotics.[1]
Plague is present among rodents in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.[3] Pneumonic plague is more serious and less common than bubonic plague.[1] The total reported number of cases of all types of plague in 2013 was 783.[2] Left untreated, pneumonic plague is always fatal.[3] Some hypothesize that the pneumonic version of the plague was mainly responsible for the Black Death that resulted in approximately 75 - 200 million deaths in the 1300s.[2][5]
^ abcdefghij"FAQ Plague". www.cdc.gov. Archived from the original on 14 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
^ abcdef"Plague". World Health Organization. September 2016. Archived from the original on 24 April 2015. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
^ abcdefghij"Plague". www.who.int. Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
^who, who. "plague". who.int. WHO. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
^McCoy, Terrence (31 March 2014). "Everything you know about the Black Death is wrong". Washington Post. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 27 August 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
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untreated. The other varieties of the plague are bubonic plague and pneumonicplague. The usual symptoms are: Abdominal pain Bleeding under the skin due...
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the pneumonicplague, so live, attenuated vaccines and recombinant protein vaccines have been developed to prevent the disease. The first plague vaccine...
ISBN 9780444528094. Retrieved 11 February 2020. Viseltear A.J. (March 1974). "The PneumonicPlague Epidemic of 1924 in Los Angeles". Yale J. Biol. Med. 47 (1): 40–54...
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plasmin in human hosts and is a very important virulence factor for pneumonicplague. Together, these plasmids, and a pathogenicity island called HPI, encode...
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authorities quarantined Zigortang after a dozen people were sickened with pneumonicplague, a lung infection that can kill a human in 24 hours if left untreated...
cause pneumonicplague", an extremely deadly form of the plague which is airborne and directly communicable between humans. This strain of plague, researchers...
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septicemic plague and pneumonicplague, were also present. Second plague pandemic Great Plague of London Great Plague of Vienna Bubonic Plague Black Death...
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around the body, resulting in other forms of the disease such as pneumonicplague. Plague patients whose buboes swell to such a size that they burst tend...
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