Protection against plague is not one measure. Each form has its own route, and each route has its own answer.
Against bubonic plague: keep the flea off you.
- Where plague exists in animals, wear long trousers, socks and closed shoes outdoors.
- Use an insect repellent containing DEET on skin and clothing. Products containing permethrin go on clothing only, never on skin. Follow the label.
- Do not rest, camp or sit near rodent burrows and nests.
- Where rats share the house: sleep on a bed raised off the floor rather than on the floor itself, and wash floors, mats and bedding regularly.
Against bubonic and septicaemic plague: keep your hands off the animal.
- Never touch a wild animal that is found dead.
- If you hunt or trap, wear gloves to handle and skin the animal.
- Do not kill, prepare or eat an animal that looks sick.
- Cook meat through.
Dead rodents.
- A sudden number of dead rats or other rodents is reported to the authorities, not cleared away quietly.
- If one has to be removed and nobody else can do it: cover your nose and mouth with a mask; never use bare hands — disposable gloves, or a plastic bag over the hand; put insecticide powder over it first, so that its fleas die with it; bury it about 1 metre deep, and wash your hands afterwards.
- Do not start killing rodents during a die-off. Fleas leave dead rodents and bite people. Rodent control comes after flea control, or together with it — never before.
Against pneumonic plague: distance, a mask, air.
- Distance. Where pneumonic plague has been reported, keep at least 2 metres from anyone who is coughing, and spend as little time as possible in crowded places.
- A mask on the person who is coughing. A medical mask on the sick person catches the droplets at the source. A medical mask on the person caring for them is the second layer. A used mask goes into a closed bin; then wash your hands.
- Air. Keep the room ventilated.
- Hands. Soap and water, or an alcohol hand rub, after every contact.
If someone at home is ill and help is on the way.
- One person looks after them; everybody else stays out of the room.
- Masks on both; a window open.
- Do not take the sick person anywhere by public transport. Wait for the ambulance, or for instructions.
- Afterwards, everyone who was within 2 metres of them contacts the health service. This is the group that is offered preventive antibiotics.
The dead. Do not wash or prepare the body of a person who has died of plague, and do not hold the gathering in the house. The body is handled by trained teams in protective equipment. This is hard for a family, and it is one of the measures that most reliably stops a chain of infection.
Source. WHO, Manual for plague surveillance, diagnosis, prevention and control (2024), sections 7.1–7.3 and Annexes 11–12, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240090422 ; WHO, Questions and answers: Plague, https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/plague ; United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing plague, https://www.cdc.gov/plague/prevention/index.html
What this is not. Reading, not training. Where the health authority or the civil-protection authority of your country gives instructions, those govern.