California health officials said an individual living in South Lake Tahoe has tested positive for the plague after recently camping in the area.
According to officials with El Dorado County, the individual is recovering at home under the care of a medical professional.
The South Lake Tahoe resident believes they may have been bitten by an infected flea while camping.
Scripps News has reached out to El Dorado County health officials to clarify which type of plague the case has been identified as.
The most common type of plague is bubonic, which is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium and primarily transmitted through rodent flea bites. The two other types of plague are pneumonic or septicemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The plague can be deadly if it is not treated promptly with antibiotics, the CDC said.
Cases of the plague are extremely rare in the U.S., with an average of seven cases reported per year since 2000, according to data from the CDC. Even rarer are deaths attributed to the plague, with the last death in the U.S. occurring in 2021 before a deadly case earlier this year in Arizona.
Health officials said plague is naturally present in parts of California; however, the most recent case reported in El Dorado County was in 2020.
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The California Department of Public Health routinely conducts surveillance on wildlife to test for plague cases. There have been 41 rodents, including squirrels or chipmunks, that have tested positive for the plague from 2021 to 2024.
So far in 2025, health officials said four additional rodents have tested positive for the plague, and all of them were found in the Tahoe area.
