Arizona patient dies from plague shortly after prairie dog die-off — a signal health officials were monitoring

An Arizona resident has died from the bubonic plague as health officials warned that a prairie dog die-off in the region could signal an outbreak of the lethal illness.

The person died at Flagstaff Medical Center the same day they arrived exhibiting serious symptoms, Northern Arizona Healthcare said in a statement Thursday. Details about the person and when they died have not been released.

Officials in the northern Arizona county of Coconino had already been looking into whether the plague was responsible for a rash of prairie dog deaths in the area. Prairie dogs are rodents, which are known carriers of fleas with the Black Death-causing Yersinia pestis bacterium.

An autopsy of the human victim revealed they were infected with the same germ, according to a report by the Independent.

Coconino health officials are working with the property owner that reported the rodent deaths to collect and test fleas.

The rare and ancient disease is responsible for an average of seven deaths a year, most of which occur in remote parts of Western states, like Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The plague notably was responsible for killing off tens of millions of people in Europe in the 14th Century.

The bacteria can cause three types of plague — bubonic when the lymph nodes are affected, septicemic when the bloodstream is hit, and pneumonic when the lungs are targeted.

The US typically deals with the bubonic plague with symptoms usually showing up within a week of infection, which normally occurs after someone is bitten by a flea that came off of a rodent.

The illness has over a 90% survival rate when treated with antibiotics that are ideally administered within 24-hours of symptoms popping up. If left untreated, the disease can be deadly.

Clues that someone has the rare illness include fever, chills, nausea, weakness and swollen, painful glands.