China seals off part of city after resident dies of bubonic plague

A young man in China died of bubonic plague last week, triggering officials to take the drastic step of indefinitely isolating an entire large section of a city.

The Verge reported that some 30,000 people in Yumen, China – about one-third of the entire city’s population – are being prevented from having any physical contact with the outside world in order to stop the potential spread of the deadly bacterial infection.

At this point, 151 people who had direct contact with the victim have been placed into special quarantine but none so far have shown any symptoms of the disease.

The plague, also known at the ‘Black Death’, is a bacterial infection that is spread through fleas. It swept across Europe in the 14th century, killing an estimated 25 million people, roughly half of the continent’s population. In the 1800’s, another epidemic spread from China that took down an estimated 10 million people worldwide.

Bubonic plague is a nasty and swift killer. Once a person gets bitten by the infected bug, the infection takes hold within two-to-five days with fevers, inflamed lymph glands and seizures. While the disease can be treated with anitbiotics, there is only about a 50 per cent chance of survival without treatment within 24 hours of the first symptoms.

At this point it is being reported by Chinese state media that it appears the victim may have gotten into direct contact with an infected, dead marmot which he had fed to his dog. Within a day he was hit by a quickly rising fever, and died on July 16 in the local hospital.

While rare, the plague does still occur in rural areas, typically agricultural communities that do have rodent problems, especially in Africa and Asia regions. Just last year over three dozen cases were reported in Madagascar.

But it is not just limited to distant or developing countries. Just last week, four cases were reported right here in North America, in the western state of Colorado.

And the plague is not the only deadly disease that is making folks around the world uneasy.

With a mortality rate upwards of 90 per cent, the frightening hemorrhagic fever known as Ebola is currently running rampant in West Africa, having claimed 632 lives since the outbreak began in Guinea back in February.

The virus reservoir is thought to exist within the wildlife population, but has escaped multiple times through hunters eating primate meat. The virus then further spread within the human population via contact, with symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting and extensive internal bleeding.

Proving just how dangerous this virus can be, Reuters is now reporting that even the the ‘national hero’ physician leading the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone has contracted the disease himself and is fighting for his life.

Meanwhile, MERS or Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome has infected more than 850 and killed 327 in the last two years, in Saudi Arabia, Europe and Asia. MERS is contracted when a serious cold-like microbe known as the Coronavirus attacks the respiratory system. It is believed to have its origins in camels.

But now the situation may have turned for the worse. Scientists are now reporting that the deadly virus may actually be airborne and can spread like the common influenza virus – making it much more contagious than previously thought.

(Photo courtesy The Atlantic)

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