The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday that the agency has found a dog that has infected his owner with the pneumonic plague. According to the federal agency, the case is the first of its kind in the country.

The CDC, which is the leading national public health institute of the United States, published a report on outbreak in rural Colorado. As per the agency's report, the outbreak began in June, 2014.

The epidemic occurred in the Colorado's rural Eastern Plains, and centered on a pit bull terrier. The infected dog was put to sleep in June last year. According to reports, the two-year-old dog had developed a mysterious illness. Owner of that dog was rushed to hospital about four days later with bloody cough and fever. There, the owner was diagnosed with the pneumonic plague. After that, one of owner's friends and two employees of the veterinarian's office also fell ill, as per the report.

Dr. John Douglas, executive director of the Tri-County Health Department in Colorado, said it was a wake-up call for health experts. According to the report's co-author, before this, the United States didn't have any case where a dog transmits an infection to humans. Plague is rare infection but pneumonic plague is really rare and the country did not have had an outbreak since 1924, Douglas added.

A bacterium called Yersinia pestis is responsible for Plague infection. It is usually transmitted by infected fleas. As per some reports, an outbreak in 14th century killed about 50 million people in Europe.

Janine Runfola of the Tri-County Health Department in Colorado said, "For pneumonic plague a more likely scenario would be you have a cat play with prairie dogs and infected fleas get on the cat. The cat gets sick and sneezes and coughs on its owner".