Yersinia Pestis

The etiology of the Bubonic Plague is Yersinia Pestis. It is a bacterium that is gram-negative and a rod-shaped coccobacillus. The bacteria is facultative anaerobic (it does not need air to survive). It is a non-spore forming zoonotic disease and secrets a thick layer of slime that stymies phagocytosis preventing the host's immune system from destroying it. The kingdom of Yersinia Pestis is a bacterial micro-organism. The phylum is proteobacteria and the class is gammaproteobacteria. It is in the order of enterobacteriales and the family of enterobacteriaceae. The genus is Yersinia, making the species Yersinia Pestis (Walsh,2005).
The causative agent is Yersinia Pestis. The reservoir or the source is ground-burrowing rodents. The disease enters the body through a break in the skin from a flea bite or an abrasion. Infection leaves the reservoir is through the blood meal of a flea that had fed on an infected rodent, or blood/flea bites. It is transmitted by the rat flea ,Xenopsylla Cheopis, or also
There are three categories of bioterrorism agents: A, B, and C. The criteria for A, high security risk pathogens, is that the pathogen is easily able to be transmitted person to person, high mortality rates, public panic, and might require special action for public health preparedness(National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,2016). Category B is the second highest priority pathogens, the criteria is that it is moderately easy to spread, a moderate or low amount of deaths and require specific enhancements for disease surveillance and prevention (NIAID,2016). The last and least deadly pathogen category is C, they are considered this because of the availability and the potential for mass dissemination rates (NIAID,2016). Yersinia Pestis is considered a category A pathogen. For all reasons including it’s history in high mortalities and how easily it is able to spread through the population if not