On Sunday, authorities in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region issued a Level 3 warning to citizens after confirming a case of the bubonic plague. The infected herdsman from Bayannur has reportedly been quarantined and is stable, while the Level 3 alert prohibits the hunting and consumption of rodents and calls upon citizens to identify and report suspected cases to the authorities.
Officials in Mongolia have also quarantined its Western border with Russia after two people in the Khovd province, were hospitalized and found to have been infected with the plague. According to Mongolia’s National Center for Zoonotic Diseases (NCZD), the cases have been “linked to the consumption of marmot meat”.
Local authorities have declared a complete lockdown in Khovd, as well as in a region around 500 km from the Siberian republics of Altai and Tuva. The NCZD has reported that it has collected samples from 146 people who had directly contacted the infected citizens, as well as from “504 second-contact individuals”.
The bubonic plague is a potentially fatal bacterial infection caused by bites of infected fleas. In humans, the bubonic plague is characterized by the swelling of lymph nodes and can be difficult to detect in early stages since its flu-like symptoms usually develop only after three to seven days. However, according to Dr. Shanthi Kappagoda, an infectious disease expert from Stanford Healthcare, it is highly unlikely that the bubonic plague—otherwise known as the 'Black Death'—will escalate to an epidemic since “we know how to prevent it” by the effective use of antibiotics.
According to the World Health Organization, descendants of the bacteria that caused the 14th-century plague which killed over 50 million people still exist in the world today. The WHO also reported that in some areas where contact between domestic and wild rodents is common, sporadic cases and occasional outbreaks of the human plague also emerge. A WHO official in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar had told the BBC that the locals believed that the consumption of raw marmot meat and kidneys was a “folk remedy for good health”.
In May 2019, Mongolia declared a quarantine in its western Bayan Olgyi province after a couple died from the bubonic plague, causing around 17 Russian tourists to be stranded in the country. In 2017, Madagascar saw more than 2,300 confirmed or suspected cases of the bubonic plague, with over 200 deaths.
The most infamous case of the bubonic plague, of course, dates back to the 14th century, when it caused around 50 million deaths across Europe, Asia, and Africa. In 1665, an outbreak of the infection killed around a fifth of London’s inhabitants, while in the late 1890s the epidemic claimed more than 12 million lives in India and China.
In other news, until now, Mongolia has only reported 220 COVID-19 cases, with zero deaths from the virus.
Image Source: Wikipedia
Mongolia, China Report Cases of the Bubonic Plague
The infection has reportedly been caused due to the consumption of raw marmot meat
July 6, 2020
