Georgian Recovering from Possible Plague Infection

A Georgia resident is in a hospital receiving treatment for a possible infection of the plague.

Health officials tell WSB-TV that the Georgian may have contracted the bacterial illness while hiking in California. The hiker may have been bitten by an infected rodent or a flea who lived on an infected rodent before it died.

Symptoms of the plague include fever, chills, and swollen lymph nodes. If not treated promptly, death can occur.

The plague is widely considered to be responsible for the Black Death in 1347-48, an epidemic which killed tens of millions of people and was responsible for sweeping changes in Europe and Central Asia which can still be felt today.

Today, the plague is treated with antibiotics and is rarely fatal or even reported in the developed world; most plague infections in the U.S. are reported in the western desert regions.

Both the Georgia Department of Health and the CDC are investigating the case of the hiker who may have contracted the plague, WSB-TV says.