BEIJING (Reuters) – Authorities in a city in China’s Inner Mongolia region issued a warning Sunday, a day after a hospital reported a suspected case of bubonic plague.
The Bayan Nur City Health Committee issued the third-level alert, the second lowest in a four-tier system.
The alert prohibits the hunting and consumption of animals that may be plague carriers and asks the public to report any suspected cases of plague or fever without clear cause, and to report any sick or dead groundhog.
Sunday’s warning follows four reported cases of plague in people from Inner Mongolia last November, including two of pneumonic plague, a deadlier variant of the plague.
Bubonic plague, known as the “Black Death” in the Middle Ages, is a highly infectious and often deadly disease that is primarily transmitted by rodents.
Plague cases are not uncommon in China, but outbreaks have become increasingly rare. From 2009 to 2018, China reported 26 cases and 11 deaths.
(Report by Min Zhang, Tony Munroe and Roxanne Liu, Edition by William Maclean and Timothy Heritage)
