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Several thousand people in northeast China tested positive for bacterial disease in an outbreak caused by a leak at a biopharmaceutical company last year, authorities said Tuesday. The Health Commission in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, announced that 3,245 people had contracted the brucellosis disease. The disease is often caused by contact with cattle that carry the brucella bacteria, CNN reported.
This outbreak started from a leak at the Zhongmu Lanzhou biological pharmaceuticals factory, which occurred between late July and late August last year, according to the city’s Health Commission. Another 1,1401 people also tested positive for the disease, but no deaths have been reported, the city’s Health Commission said. In total, authorities have examined 21,847 people out of the city’s 2.9 million residents. The disease, also known as Malt fever or Mediterranean fever, can cause symptoms including headaches, muscle aches, fever, and fatigue.
While some symptoms can become chronic or never go away, such as arthritis or swelling in certain organs, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Person-to-person transmission is extremely rare, according to the CDC. Instead, most people become infected by eating contaminated food or breathing in the bacteria, which appears to be the case in Lanzhou.
While producing Brucella vaccines for animal use, the factory used expired disinfectants and disinfectants, meaning that not all bacteria were eradicated in the waste gas.
This contaminated waste gas formed aerosols containing the bacteria and leaked into the air, carried by the wind to the Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, where the outbreak first occurred.
In the months after the outbreak, provincial and municipal officials launched an investigation into the leak at the factory, according to the Lanzhou Health Commission. In January, authorities had revoked the vaccine production licenses for the plant and withdrawn the product approval numbers for its two brucellosis vaccines.
A total of seven veterinary pharmaceutical approval numbers were also canceled at the factory.
In February, the factory issued a public apology and said it had “severely punished” eight people who were found responsible for the incident. Added.
