Patient dies of plague in extremely rare case after health officials issued chilling warning

An American has died after contracting the pneumonic plague, dying the same day he checked himself into hospital.

The patient - who is yet to be identified - is believed to have picked up the deadly disease in Coconino County, in northern Arizona.

The man is understood to have visited Flagstaff Medical Center Emergency Department, which is located in Flagstaff - roughly a two-hour drive from Phoenix, where he succumbed to the disease the same day.

In a statement issued by Northern Arizona Healthcare (NAH), doctors attempted to 'to provide life-saving resuscitation' on the individual but he 'did not recover'.

Testing on the day determined that he was diagnosed with Yersinia pestis - a bacteria that causes plague, with officials confirming yesterday (July 11) that he contracted the pneumonic plague, which it described as 'a severe lung infection caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium'.

He is the first person to die from the disease in the county since 2007.

Dave Wagner, of Northern Arizona University, has studied the disease, and explained to 12 News that the plague is likely to have come from rodents like prairie dogs, whose colonies are known to carry case after case of the disease.

They then often pass it onto domestic pets or other wild animals via fleas, that then pass it onto humans.

The hospital is now probing the case, alongside Coconino County Health and Human Services Department, as well as the Arizona Department of Health Services.

It added: "NAH would like to remind anyone who suspects they are ill with a contagious disease to contact their health care provider.

Colonies of prairie dogs are known to carry plague (Getty stock)

"If their illness is severe, they should go to the Emergency Department and immediately ask for a mask to help prevent the spread of disease while they access timely and important care."

There are three common forms of plague, these are the bubonic plague - which caused the 'Black Death' in the 18th century, as well as pneumonic, and septicemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) details the pneumonic plague as: "[Developing] when bacteria spread to the lungs of a patient with untreated bubonic or septicemic plague, or when a person inhales infectious droplets coughed out by another person or animal with pneumonic plague."

Cases of the plague are rare but do still crop up - with an average of seven people contracting the plague every year in the US between 2000 and 2023, although they don't usually die, according to the CDC.