After its first description in the 1910s in the Tulare county of California associated with a massive die off of ground squirrels and initially misdiagnosed with bubonic plague, by 1935 tularemia had already been described in Canada, Japan, Russia and Northern Europe [1–3]. The causative agent, Francisella tularensis, was first isolated from ground squirrels in 1912 by McCoy and Chapin [4]. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in tularemia as a re-emerging infection with the potential of causing outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere [5–9].
