--- title: Oregon Bubonic Plague: Here's What You Need to Know description: It's on the rise in the U.S., and nobody knows why canonical: https://time.com/4094862/bubonic-plague-facts/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-30T21:08:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:14:16.838Z article:section: Health og:title: Oregon Bubonic Plague: Here's What You Need to Know og:description: It's on the rise in the U.S., and nobody knows why og:url: https://time.com/4094862/bubonic-plague-facts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Oregon Bubonic Plague: Here's What You Need to Know twitter:description: It's on the rise in the U.S., and nobody knows why twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Here's What You Need to Know About the Bubonic Plague  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Oct 30, 2015 9:08 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Oct 30, 2015 9:08 PM UTC The Oregon teen who was [hospitalized with bubonic plague last weekend](http://time.com/4094046/oregon-girl-bubonic-plague/) marked the 16th reported case of the illness so far this year in the U.S. That’s already six more cases of the plague than in all of last year, and the numbers have been steadily rising since 2010, when there were only two people in the U.S. diagnosed with the plague, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far this year, three people have died of the illness, and the CDC [says](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6433a6.htm) it’s “unclear” why cases are on the rise. The teenager from Oregon, who is in intensive care after being hospitalized on Oct. 24, likely caught the plague from an infected flea during a hiking trip, according to a statement from Oregon authorities. \[findthebest id=”jmup66uVz5b” title=”Number of Plague Cases in the United States Over Time” width=”600″ height=”505″ url=”[https://w.graphiq.com/w/jmup66uVz5b”](https://w.graphiq.com/w/jmup66uVz5b”); link=”[http://conditions.healthgrove.com”](http://conditions.healthgrove.com”); link\_text=”Number of Plague Cases in the United States Over Time | HealthGrove”\] As likely occurred in the Oregon case, the plague is generally transmitted through fleas that pick up the infectious bacterial disease from infected rodents. Plague was responsible for the [Black Death that killed almost a third of Europe’s population](http://www.history.com/topics/black-death) during the 14th century. The plague first came to the U.S. on rat-infested steamships that arrived in 1900, and the last recorded plague epidemic in the U.S. was in Los Angeles in the 1920s. Since then, cases have been periodically reported, usually in the rural areas in the West and Southwest with large populations of wild rodents. Symptoms include fever, weakness, chills, and swollen and tender lymph nodes. Some victims will get black pustules. Left untreated, the plague is extremely lethal, with a 66%-93% mortality rate, [according to the CDC](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6433a6.htm). But if treated with antibiotics, only about 16% of patients die of the plague. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4094862/bubonic-plague-facts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4094862/bubonic-plague-facts/"},"headline":"Here's What You Need to Know About the Bubonic Plague","datePublished":"2015-10-30T21:08:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:14:16.838Z","description":"It's on the rise in the U.S., and nobody knows why","url":"https://time.com/4094862/bubonic-plague-facts/","keywords":["diseases","sick","oregon","plague"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/diseases/","name":"diseases"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4094862/bubonic-plague-facts/","name":"Here's What You Need to Know About the Bubonic Plague"}}]}] ```