New bubonic plague cases in Inner Mongolia trigger alert

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. The municipal government raised its alert level by one notch to “standard plague outbreak alert”, which means humans have been infected.

“There is a risk of a human plague epidemic spreading in this city,” Bayannur’s health commission said in a statement.

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 Organisation spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters in Geneva yesterday 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.

Under the new measures announced in Bayannur, which will remain in effect until 2021, suspected cases of plague among human patients or sick and dead marmots must be reported immediately. The city of Beijing also urged residents on Monday not to go camping in Inner Mongolia, a vast strip of scenic grassland and desert that urban dwellers often visit.

The plague, which researchers generally believe originated from the Asian steppes, killed tens or hundreds of millions of people in several deadly waves throughout history. One particularly deadly wave in the 14th century traveled along the Mongol Empire’s flourishing trading routes and killed one-third of the population in Europe.

Today, the disease continues to circulate regularly in many parts of the world but usually does not spark major epidemics or public health crises. Madagascar suffered several notable outbreaks in recent years that killed hundreds.

The United States averages about seven cases a year, according to the Centre for Disease Control. Officials in China say they had about 30 cases in the last decade. (© Washington Post)