Bubonic plague cases reported in China’s Inner Mongolia

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Six cases of the Bubonic Plague have already been reported in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia.
• The Plague can be transmitted through fleas of the infected animal or by eating its meat.
• A citywide plague prevention warning of Level 3 has been issued in the city of Bayannur, northwest of China.  

The world is still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and here comes a suspected case of the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. From a virus, now it is a bacterium.

There are similarities in how it spreads — the coronavirus from bats, and the bubonic plague from marmots which was also the suspected carrier of the plague pandemic in 1911.

Infected animals and flea bites are the main transmitters of the bubonic bacteria which left an estimated 500 million people dead during the Middle Ages, in which 63,000 came from the Northeast region of China.

Located northwest of Beijing, the city of Bayannur is now under a plague prevention warning citywide Level 3 as municipal authorities sounded the alarm for a bubonic plague patient case. Its officials are now warning its citizens to avoid hunting and eating the animals, to report dead or sick marmots, and to lessen the risk of human-to-human transmission.

So far, there are 6 recorded cases: two brothers in Mongolia who ate marmot meat, a Mongolian couple who ate marmot raw kidney, and two more Mongolians who suffered from another form of the bubonic plague affecting the lungs — the pneumonic plague.

The plague causes chills, fever, coughing, and causes painful, swollen lymph nodes.

Unlike the coronavirus which still has no vaccine, the plague can be arrested if modern antibiotics are administered quickly.  

According to the state-run China Daily newspaper, the Local Health Authority said, “At present, there is a risk of a human plague epidemic spreading in this city. The public should improve its self-protection awareness and ability, and report abnormal health conditions promptly.”

Source: CNN