NM must be the ultimate breeding ground for the plague. My cousin contracted Bubonic Plague when he moved to New Mexico from New Jersey many years ago and nearly died. Mr. Winnie and I went out there last summer for a visit and anytime we went hiking there were warning signs to not go too deeply into caves, don’t disturb animal carcasses, etc. It is definitely not something to screw around with, even with the advances in medicine we have.
FTR, Winnie it’s not just NM – Arizona, Utah, and parts of Texas and Colorado and Nevada are higher risk too. The plague and the hantavirus have been creeping up further north from Central America for quite awhile. A few wetter-than-usual seasons in the American southwest have led to an increase in the rodent population (happily munching on grains and piñon nuts.) Hence the greater risk of plague and hantavirus. (Hantavirus was almost never seen this far north, but cases have been recently discovered here in Ontario!)
You’ll find that “don’t goof around deep in caves, stay away from carcasses” is a general rule you should adhere too in ANY state, not just NM. Caves more so because of bats (rabies and icky stuff in guano) and you really don’t want to go near an animal carcass in case you get whatever killed the animal.
Different regions have their Bad Nasties. In the southwest the plague and hantavirus are two of the Bad Nasties. In the northeastern and upper midwest, you’re more likely to have issues with Lime disease (very bad multisystem infectious syndrome endemic to the region).
Just food for thought lest NM starts getting a bad rep as a “disease infested region.” Hiking in the rockies in NM just has different lethal dangers than hiking in the Appalachians in Québec, for example. (In the Yukon, you get “bear training” – now there’s a fancy regional danger!)
As always, stay on marked trails, don’t poke dead things with a stick, and don’t sleep in yucky, old sleeping bags that you’ve had lying around your plague-rat infested yard all summer! If you’re living in an agricultural area (and since practically half the population of the state lives in Albuqurque – a LOT of NM is rural) you have to be appropriately vigilant.
Bummer to hear that your cousin got sick. Whereabouts in NM did he live?
Thanks for the good info, Charmian.
At the time he lived in Los Alamos. My uncle (his dad) works for the bomb lab. And he’s from Columbia. Then his son gets the Plague. Don’t doubt that it raised a few eyebrows 
A few plague cases are seen almost each year in New Mexico. The fleas can also infect cats and dogs, so it’s wise to dust your pets before hiking with them in the southwest. As an epidemiologist, I always secretly wished I could get the plague (and recover, of course) just to say I had it.
Now I live in the land of Dengue instead.
Every year or so around here we have a plague case or two. It’s generally the prarie dogs at fault. As most have mentioned we stay away from the carcasses and generally the local county governments try to keep the prairie dog populations down.
“One in seven” sounds about right.
I went through a CDC bioterrorism exercise with the KY state public health office last year (I did an elective there) in which the offending agent turned out to be plague.
“Bubonic” is one type of infection caused by Y. pestis; this causes distinctively swollen lymph nodes, called buboes. This is the more common form of the disease. The more deadly form–and the form we would worry about more if it were aerosolized–is pneumonic plague. This presents with the classic non-specific “flu-like symptoms”, and only really distinguishes itself when the patient goes to hell all at once, almost always leading to a ventilator and usually preceding death.
If you start the right antibiotics before the crash, you can usually avert it. They say that if Y. pestis is used as a weapon, there will be big casualties in the first few hours until we figure out what the hell is going on, but after that we should be able to get it under control. (It responds to a lot of very common antibiotics.)
Dr. J