(CNN) Authorities in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia are on high
alert after a suspected case of bubonic plague, the disease that caused
the Black Death pandemic, was reported Sunday.
The case was discovered in the city of Bayannur, located northwest of Beijing, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.
A
hospital alerted municipal authorities of the patient's case on
Saturday. By Sunday, local authorities had issued a citywide Level 3
warning for plague prevention, the second lowest in a four-level system.
The warning will stay in place until the end of the year, according to Xinhua.
Plague,
caused by bacteria and transmitted through flea bites and infected
animals, is one of the deadliest bacterial infections in human history.
During the Black Death in the Middle Ages, it killed an estimated 50
million people in Europe.
Bubonic plague, which is one of
plague's three forms, causes painful, swollen lymph nodes, as well as
fever, chills, and coughing.
Bayannur health authorities are now
urging
people to take extra precautions to minimize the risk of human-to-human
transmission, and to avoid hunting or eating animals that could cause
infection.
"At present, there is a risk of a human plague
epidemic spreading in this city. The public should improve its
self-protection awareness and ability, and report abnormal health
conditions promptly," the local health authority said, according to
state-run newspaper China Daily.
Bayannur authorities warned the public to
report
findings of dead or sick marmots -- a type of large ground squirrel
that is eaten in some parts of China and the neighboring country
Mongolia, and which have historically caused plague outbreaks in the
region.
The marmot is believed to have caused the 1911 pneumonic
plague epidemic, which killed about 63,000 people in northeast China. It
was hunted for its fur, which soared in popularity among international
traders. The diseased fur products were traded and transported around the country -- infecting thousands along the way.
Though
that epidemic was contained within a year, marmot-related plague
infections have persisted decades later. Just last week, two cases of
bubonic plague were confirmed in Mongolia -- brothers who had both eaten
marmot meat, according to Xinhua.
Last May, a couple in Mongolia
died from bubonic plague after eating the raw kidney of a marmot,
thought to be a folk remedy for good health. Two more people got
pneumonic plague -- another form of the disease, which infects the lungs
-- months later across the border in Inner Mongolia.
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