LANCASTER STRAY CATS TO BE CAUGHT, TESTED FOR BUBONIC PLAGUE.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Staff Writer

Los Angeles County officials plan today to catch stray cats at a Lancaster mobile home park and test them for bubonic plague.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta confirmed Tuesday that a stray cat brought Sept. 1 to the Lancaster animal shelter from the Rancho Mirage Coach Club was infected with the potentially fatal disease.

``At some point in its life, it probably came into contact (with the disease) by eating a dead rodent,'' said Gail Miley, Lancaster shelter manager. ``It was a very low level.''

The cat, about 6 months old, was brought into the shelter by mobile home park staff and put to sleep eight days later when it was not adopted. It showed no signs of illness, but the shelter occasionally tests feral cats - wild house cats - for plague.

The same disease that killed a third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages, bubonic plague is always present among ground squirrels around Tehachapi, Lake Isabella, Frazier Park, and in the Angeles National Forest between the Los Angeles Basin and Antelope Valley.

Kern and Los Angeles County health officials annually send out warnings for campers, hikers and residents in those areas to take precautions against the disease - mainly by avoiding ground squirrels and their fleas.

While plague is common among wild animals in certain areas, it seldom spreads to humans. The last known human plague case in Los Angeles County was in 1984.

A Tehachapi man died after contracting the virulent pneumonic form of plague in 1995, and a Tehachapi woman caught the plague in 1997.

The last large local plague outbreak occurred in 1924, when 30 Los Angles residents were infected.

A bacterial infection, the plague can be transmitted to human beings through the bite of an infected flea. Bubonic plague's symptoms include high fever and chills. Untreated bubonic plague may progress to infection of the blood or to pneumonic plague (in the lungs) and may be fatal.

Fleas from cats and dogs are less likely to infect humans than the fleas of squirrels and rats, a county veterinarian said. Rats spread the disease in medieval Europe.

``We use animals as sentinels for human disease,'' said Patrick Ryan, a veterinarian with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. ``It gives us an early indication.''

Besides catching stray cats and testing them, officials may dust for fleas at the mobile home park, which is in the 43800 block of 20th Street East.

Animal control officials are expected to inform residents of the recent findings and advise them to watch out for their pets.

``We're advising people to keep their animals in their homes or in their back yards,'' said Ryan.

Officials also warn people not to feed stray cats and will notify Antelope Valley veterinarians to be on the lookout for the disease.

Cats infected with plague would experience swollen lymph nodes, a high fever and look sick, officials said.