© Getty Images
A Mongolian groundhog is shown in the Khögno Khan National Park.
A 15-year-old boy died of bubonic plague after eating a groundhog, Mongolian officials say.
The death occurred within a quarantined part of Gobi-Altai province in western Mongolia, health officials said. Two other teens also ate the groundhog.
Authorities say more than a dozen people who came in contact with the victim, including the other two teens, were quarantined and given antibiotics.
Mongolia is currently dealing with an outbreak of the plague believed to be spreading through groundhogs, a large rodent that is sometimes hunted for food. Officials in Mongolia and neighboring Russia have urged people not to hunt or eat groundhogs during the outbreak.
Two other Mongols were recently diagnosed with the plague in an unrelated incident, and another case was reported in China’s Inner Mongolia region earlier this month.
Read more: 2 people infected with bubonic plague after eating groundhog meat in Mongolia
Plague is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, and a handful of cases arise in different parts of the world each year. In the United States, for example, a squirrel tested positive for the disease on Saturday.
The disease causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, nausea, and swollen lymph nodes within a week of exposure. According to the World Health Organization, about 50-60 percent of all untreated cases are fatal.
Bubonic plague is one of the three forms of plague caused by the bacteria, which once wreaked havoc around the world like the Black Death. The current COVID-19 pandemic pales in comparison to the previous plague, which killed about 50 million people from 1347 to 1352.
The World Health Organization says that plague is no longer a global threat because it can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed early enough. However, it is also unlikely to go away, and a few thousand cases are diagnosed each year worldwide.
–With files from The Associated Press
Video: Mosquito testing hampered by pandemic response (The Canadian Press)
UNTIL NEXT TIME
