The Arizona Public Health Association is advising the public that there is no need to worry about the plague, despite one ...

The sylvatic plague, first introduced to the United States in the early 1900s, infects ferrets and prairie dogs through fleas. Neither prairie dogs nor ferrets have any natural defense against it.

Symptoms of plague in humans include fever, chills, and swollen lymph nodes. Prairie dogs are dying in northern Arizona, and officials are concerned the cause could be the plague.