Yersinia pestis infection pathophysiology
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Differentiating Yersinia Pestis Infection from other Diseases |
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Pathophysiology
Fleas become infected by feeding on rodents, such as the chipmunks, prairie dogs, ground squirrels, mice, and other mammals that are infected with the bacteria Yersinia pestis. Fleas transmit the plague bacteria to humans and other mammals during the feeding process. The plague bacteria are maintained in the blood systems of rodents.
A person can get plague from another individual when the other person has plague pneumonia and coughs droplets containing the plague bacteria into air that is breathed by a non-infected person.
A person usually becomes ill with bubonic plague 2 to 6 days after being infected. When bubonic plague is left untreated, plague bacteria invade the bloodstream. When plague bacteria multiply in the bloodstream, they spread rapidly throughout the body and cause a severe and often fatal condition. Infection of the lungs with the plague bacterium causes the pneumonic form of plague, a severe respiratory illness. The infected person may experience high fever, chills, cough, and breathing difficulty, and expel bloody sputum. If plague patients are not given specific antibiotic therapy, the disease can progress rapidly to death.