China has announced that a 55-year-old man has been diagnosed with
pneumonic plague after killing and eating a wild rabbit, adding to two plague cases already discovered in the capital Beijing.
A media statement from the health authority in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region north of
Beijing said that as of Saturday the man was being treated at a hospital in the city of Huade.
Health investigators told
Thailand Medical News that they found the patient from rural Xilingol League had consumed the rabbit on Nov. 5.
The media statement said 28 people who had close contact with the man were quarantined but none has run a fever or shown other plague symptoms.
On Nov. 12, two patients also from Xilingol region were diagnosed with
pneumonic plague in
Beijing. No epidemiological association has been found between the two cases.But thousands were quarantined in
Beijing.
Pneumonic plague can be fatal in up to 90% of people infected if not treated, primarily with several types of antibiotics.
Pneumonic plague can develop from bubonic plague and results in a severe lung infection causing shortness of breath, headache and coughing.
China has largely eradicated plague, but occasional cases are still reported, especially among hunters who come into contact with fleas that carry the bacterium. The last major known outbreak was in 2009, when several people died in the town of Ziketan in Qinghai province on the Tibetan Plateau.
The country has vastly improved its detection and management of infectious diseases since the 2003 outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, that led to 774 deaths, mostly in
China and Hong Kong.
Beijing was accused of initially covering up the outbreak and dragging its feet in cooperating with the World Health Organization, allowing the disease to spread outside the country.
This year, African swine fever has devastated pig herds in China and elsewhere in Asia, causing shortages and higher pork prices.
Certain European countries are already issuing travel advisories against unnessary travel to
China.
Previous article about pneumonic plague in China:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/who-confirms-emergence-of-cases-of-deadly-pneumonic-plague-in-beijing-during-the-last-96-hours
