Chicago Officials Deny Public Health Threat Following Plague Death

Chicago health officials have started taking the precautionary measures to keep the Bubonic plague from spreading following the death of a University of Chicago geneticist. Sixty-year-old Malcom Casadaban died last week within 12-hours of developing intense flu-like symptoms.

Casadaban had been working with a strain of Yersenia pestis, which only affects ten-to-15 people in the U.S. each year.

Fellow researchers at the University of Chicago say its unlikely the plague is a threat to the general public.

Officials believe there was something about Casadaban’s genetic makeup that made him susceptible.

However, officials are offering antibiotics to the people who were closest to him.

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2 Mice Carrying Plague Disappear From NJ Lab, FBI Says No Public Health Risk

The frozen remains of two mice injected with the organism that causes plague have not been accounted for seven weeks after being discovered missing at a University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey facility in Newark, the university said Friday.

The FBI investigated and determined there was no risk to public health or any indication of the terrorist link.

It wasn’t the first time plague-infected mice have disappeared from the New Jersey facility. Four years ago, in September 2005, three live mice infected with bubonic plague bacteria disappeared from various cages. Officials later said they believed the rodents had died.

UMDNJ’s Public Health Research Institute issued a four-paragraph statement about the December incident late Friday saying it believes the red hazardous waste bag containing the dead mice was sterilized and incinerated along with another bag.

“Although the mice in the missing bag were used in vaccine experiments involving the bacteria Yersinia pestis, the organism that causes plague, UMDNJ has no reason to believe that this situation poses a risk to the safety or health of UMDNJ staff or the community at large,” the university said in its prepared statement.

University spokesman Jerry Carey said he did not know why UMDNJ waited seven weeks to disclose the missing mice.

via FOXNews.com – 2 Mice Carrying Plague Disappear From New Jersey Lab, FBI Says No Public Health Risk – Health News | Current Health News | Medical News.