A child from Los Angeles County is recovering from a case of the plague, state health officials reported Thursday.
The child was hospitalized after visiting Stanislaus National Forest and camping at Yosemite National Park's Crane Flat Campground. No one else in the child's group became sick, officials said.
No other information about the child was released.
"Cases of plague in California are very rare," said Vicki Kramer, chief of the vector-borne disease section of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). "Every year, however, we do detect animals with plague in California, particularly at higher elevations. We've found it in 49 [of California's 58] counties."
Plague is an infectious bacterial disease carried by squirrels, chipmunks and other wild rodents as well as their fleas. The fleas "prefer to live on rodents," Kramer said, so generally don't pose a threat to people.