A Colorado teen who thought he had come down with the flu but then died within a few days apparently had been infected with the plague, likely by fleas that put the bacteria directly into his bloodstream, The Associated Press reported.

Local health officials on Friday heeded a request by Taylor Gaes' parents to make the 16-year-old's case public and put out a warning to make sure others who may have visited their family's rural home near Fort Collins had not been sickened by the same animals.

The plague is exceedingly rare in the United States, and the the last time someone died from the disease goes back two years when a case of the less-common septicemic plague occurred in New Mexico, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In Colorado, the last plague death was in 2004, Jennifer House, the state's public health veterinarian, told the AP.

At a local news conference, the Colorado teen's father, Shannon Gaes, on Tuesday asked that his son's death serve as a cautionary tale to remind the public of the dangers of the bacterial infection that ended Taylor's life in a matter of just four days, the Denver Post noted.

"This is by far the toughest thing we've ever had to do," he said. "We just want to make sure people are aware of the plague."

Local health officials sustained the theory of a flea bite but noted that the teenager may also have contracted the disease through contact with a dead animal on the family's property in the rural Cherokee Park area, the newspaper said.

"We'll never know when he got bit, where he got bit," admitted Katie O'Donnell, the spokeswoman for the Larimer County Health Department.

The CDC, meanwhile, is now trying to determine how prevalent the infection is in northern Colorado, according to Fox News. The federal agency said that all types of the plague can be treated and cured if antibiotics are promptly administered but that the disease is deadly when treatment is delayed.