November 8, 2002	Friday	Ramazan 2,1423

NEW YORK, Nov 7: Two people visiting New York from New Mexico were being treated in isolated hospital rooms on Thursday with symptoms of bubonic plague, the first likely cases of the deadly bacterial disease in the city in more than 100 years, officials said.

Health officials announced on Wednesday night that a 53-year-old man had tested “presumptively positive” for bubonic plague and his 47-year-old wife had similar symptoms, but test results were not yet known.

“The man is in critical condition and the woman is in stable condition,” Mike Quane, spokesman for the Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan where the unidentified couple are being treated, said on Thursday.

The city health department said bubonic plague, which has largely been eradicated but does occur in the rural southwest of the country in states such as New Mexico, is not spread from person to person and there is no risk to New York’s population of eight million, the largest city in the United States.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial disease of rodents transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. Pneumonic plague, a more serious form of the disease, occurs when plague bacteria are inhaled after direct contact with infected animals including rodents, wildlife and pets, health officials said.—Reuters