Health Officials Testing Pets for Plague

Los Angeles County Health Department investigators went door-to-door in a Santa Clarita neighborhood Wednesday, asking residents to submit their dogs and cats to testing for sylvatic plague, which can lead to bubonic plague if spread to humans.

The search was made after a dog that had been picked up by county Animal Control workers in the Santa Clarita neighborhood was tested in mid-April and found to be infected with the disease. Officials refused to disclose the neighborhood’s exact location.

The results of tests released at same time indicated that a second dog, picked up in Topanga, was also infected. Investigators will go door-to-door Thursday in Topanga seeking pets for testing there, said Frank Hall, spokesman for the county Health Department.

A domestic cat in Rancho Palos Verdes was also discovered to have been infected with the plague, as well as a ground squirrel and a coyote that officials had trapped in Griffith Park. All the animals had been tested between mid-March and mid-April.

The reports of the disease are significant because the sylvatic plague is usually discovered in wild rodents, not domestic animals, Hall said. Moreover, the cases typically are discovered in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, and not in the suburbs, and most cases are not spotted until later in summer.

“We’ve never had that many reports from so many areas before. I think it’s pretty significant. It indicates it’s widespread,” Hall said.

County health workers also set traps for ground squirrels and other wild rodents Wednesday in a Santa Clarita park in an effort to pinpoint the site where one of the dogs was bitten by a disease-carrying flea.

Last week, officials quarantined a picnic area on Vermont Avenue opposite the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park where the infected ground squirrel had been found. County health workers are dusting the area with pesticides to kill the fleas and exterminate a targeted population of squirrels. The picnic area will remain closed until Monday.

The disease can be transmitted by bites from infected fleas and spread to an animal. If the animal comes into contact with humans, the sylvatic plague can lead to bubonic plague, which can be fatal if not diagnosed early and treated with antibiotics.

Symptoms include enlargement of the lymph glands near a flea bite and the onset of fever and chills, usually within a week of exposure.

The most recent cases of bubonic plague in Los Angeles County occurred in 1984, when three people contracted the disease, Health Department officials said. None of the victims died.