This year, 14 cases was registered in the U.S. There was an average of seven such cases annually in recent decades, according to the CDC. Especially if it’s detected early, the plague can be treated with modern medicine such as antibiotics and antimicrobials and isn’t the death sentence. Officials are reassuring the public there is no cause for alarm. People are most often infected by bites from infected fleas or when they have direct contact with the tissues or body fluids from an infected animal. The more contagious is the pneumonic form of the plague. A form of the plague is septicemic and occurs when the plague organism multiplies in the blood.
