PORTLAND, Ore. -- Health officials have confirmed that an Oregon man has the plague after he was bitten while trying to take a dead rodent from the mouth of a stray cat.
The unidentified Prineville, Ore., man was in critical condition on Friday. He is suffering from a blood-borne version of the disease that wiped out at least one-third of Europe in the 14th century -- that one, the bubonic plague, affect lymph nodes.
There is an average of seven human plague cases in the U.S. each year. A map maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that most cases since the 1970s have been in the West, primarily the Southwest.
The plague bacteria cycles through rodent populations without killing them off; in urban areas, it's transmitted back and forth from rats to fleas. There's even a name for it -- the "enzootic cycle."