China announces danger regime due to plague outbreak: is there a threat of a new pandemic

The bubonic plague first appeared in Mongolia, and now in northern China. Local authorities warn that the disease is transmitted from person to person, writes DW.

Photo: Shutterstock

Authorities in the Bayan Nur urban district in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China on Sunday, July 5, announced a regime of increased epidemiological danger due to a patient with symptoms of bubonic plague, who sought help from a local hospital.

Local authorities warn that the disease is spread from person to person and urge people not to hunt or eat animals that could carry it, particularly rodents such as Mongolian marmots.

In the Bayan-Nur district, the third (out of four possible) levels of the notification regime has been introduced, in which the issues of epidemiological safety of citizens are coordinated at the level of local authorities. The central government is connected only at the first, highest, level.

A Level 3 warning that prohibits the hunting and eating of animals that may carry the plague and encourages the public to report suspicious cases was put in place before the end of the year, writes Air force.

Earlier reports of the bubonic plague in western Mongolia were reported. In the region where two cases of the disease were registered, quarantine was introduced, the entry of vehicles into the region, as well as the exit, were temporarily suspended.

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What is the bubonic plague?

Bubonic plague, caused by a bacterial infection, caused one of the deadliest epidemics in human history, the Black Death, which killed an estimated 50 million people in Africa, Asia and Europe in the XNUMXth century.

Since then there have been several major outbreaks. During the Great Plague of 1665, about a fifth of the population of London died, and more than 12 million people died in outbreaks in the XNUMXth century in China and India.

But these days, plague can be treated with antibiotics. If untreated, the disease, which is usually transmitted from animals to a person with fleas, has a mortality rate of 30-60%.

Symptoms of plague include high fever, chills, nausea, weakness and swollen lymph nodes. Painful inflammation of the lymph nodes is characterized by the formation of “buboes”, most often in the inguinal, less often in the axillary. Since the advent of antibiotics, almost all plague patients recover if treatment is started in a timely manner.

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Could there be another epidemic?

Cases of bubonic plague are rare, but outbreaks of the disease still occur from time to time.

In Madagascar, more than 300 cases were reported during the outbreak in 2017. However, a study in the medical journal The Lancet found that less than 30 people died.

Last May, two people in Mongolia died from the plague they contracted after eating raw marmot meat, the same type of rodent encountered in the second suspected case.

However, it is unlikely that any cases will lead to an epidemic.

“Unlike the 14th century, we now have an understanding of how this disease is transmitted,” Dr. Shanti Kappagoda, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford Health Sciences Center, told the Heathline news site. - We know how to prevent this. We can also treat patients with effective antibiotics.”

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