BUBONIC PLAGUE TRIGGERS HEALTH ALERT

TAIPEI, TAIWAN Chinese public health authorities are taking precautions to prevent a bubonic plague outbreak in a remote northern region after a herder contracted the disease, although experts say the risk is low given the limited number of cases so far and the availability of modern medicine.

The health commission in Bayannur in Inner Mongolia raised its public health warning to its third-highest of four alert levels on Sunday and banned the hunting, skinning and transportation of rodents that might carry the bacteria, known as Yersinia pestis.

Over the past year, China has reported five cases of the disease associated with some of the deadliest pandemics in human history. The plague caused the Black Death that devastated the population of medieval Europe and repeatedly afflicted Asia and more recently Africa, but it has largely been controlled since the mid-20th century.

World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that the plague case count in China was low and the agency did not consider it high risk, but it was monitoring the situation with partners in China and Mongolia.

Officials at Inner Mongolia’s regional centre for disease control have warned that the plague may have long been circulating locally and that there is risk of human-to-human transmission, according to a statement posted online by the regional government last month.