Airborne Plague In China

[tcmgpt13]

This is a more serious problem as this plague is carried through the air rather than by a flea bite. I suggest that everyone buy disposable face masks in preparation for the coming winter, as it seems every time we read a paper another serious illness is reported:

China seals off town where 3 died of plague

by Ariana Eunjung Cha - Aug. 3, 2009 04:11 PM
The Washington Post

BEIJING — Chinese authorities have sealed off a remote town in northwestern China after three people died of pneumonic plague and eight others were infected with the highly contagious lung disease.

The Qinghai province health bureau said a 32-year-old herdsman and a 37-year-old neighbor in Ziketan, a Tibetan town of 10,000, have died. A doctor at a nearby hospital where patients are being treated said a third victim, who was 64, died Monday.

Chinese authorities have said most of the other infected patients are in stable condition, but Wen Xin, a physician at the Tibetan Hospital of Xinghai County in Qinghai, said the wife of the herdsman was in serious condition and coughing up blood. He said an additional 13 people are being quarantined at the hospital for observation.

“City leaders, plague experts and cadres from national and local disease control and prevention departments are all in the village,” Wen said.

Pneumonic plague is caused by the same bacterium
as bubonic plague, or Black Death, which is estimated to have killed 25 million people during the Middle Ages. While bubonic plague is transmitted by infected fleas, pneumonic plague moves from person to person through the air, according to the World Health Organization. Patients typically become infected by being in close contact with someone who has the plague and is coughing, or by handling contaminated articles. If left untreated, pneumonic plague can cause death within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms.

Vivian Tan, spokeswoman for the WHO in Beijing, said that the origin of the pneumonic plague outbreak in China is unknown but that similar outbreaks have occurred sporadically over the years in Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Americas and some Asian countries. In 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, 2,118 people in nine countries were infected and 182 died.

Tan said that the agency was informed of the infections over the weekend and that it is monitoring the situation but has not sent personnel to the affected region. “According to the information we received, the situation is under control and the Chinese authorities have the experience to deal with this,” she said.

Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, during which China's slow and secretive response was blamed for the spread of SARS worldwide, the government has overhauled how it deals with disease outbreaks. Its aggressive approach to swine flu in recent months is credited with keeping the number of infected within its borders to a minimum.

Staff researchers Liu Liu and Wang Juan contributed to this report.

[Baraka Obam]

Looks like it is starting, china lets in lots of African black, WHICH in some countries the HIV percentage of the infected is at 38%. If you are in a room of 200 people 76 of them have HIV. The plagues of Africa will spread all over the world if the Chinese succumb.

[pat]

And don't forget that almost a million chinese have moved to Africa in a bid to take over there and find a place for their 'overspill'. seems like they are running out of space in china.
Well we'll certainly have to be careful about the toilet rolls now coming in from china...they will have the plague on em too.LOL.Personally I vote for corks,thats the answer.I'm sure you will work that out both of you having a similar sense of humour to me.LOL.

[carla]

They are on the way Pat.

Residents Flee Quarantined Town

I shouldn't joke.This must be awful for them.

The first death was of a herdsman who succumbed to the plague three days after burying his dog, which had died suddenly. Another 11 people – friends and relatives – became infected after attending the man’s funeral. Pneumonic plague is spread through the air and can be passed from person to person through coughing.

[tcmgpt13]

A bit more information about how this form of the plague starts from an older article. Makes me lose an appetite for sure. I notice that some of the current articles are not mentioning this information (this is a cached story from WPIX-TV | New York Entertainment, News - WPIX so have copied here). I think the last paragraph has been proven wrong with Carla's more recent information:

China locks down northwest town after 2nd pneumonic plague death

GILLIAN WONG Associated Press Writer

3:11 PM EDT, August 3, 2009
BEIJING (AP) — China locked down a remote farming town after two people died and 10 more were sickened with pneumonic plague, a lung infection that can kill a human in 24 hours if left untreated.

Police set up checkpoints around Ziketan in northwestern Qinghai province, where townspeople reached by The Associated Press by phone Monday said the streets were largely deserted and most shops shut.

Authorities urged anyone who had visited the town of 10,000 people since mid-July and has developed a cough or fever to seek hospital treatment.

On Sunday, a 37-year-old man identified only as Danzin became the second reported fatality from the outbreak. He lived next door to the first, a 32-year-old herder. The 10 sickened, mostly relatives of the herder, were undergoing isolated treatment in hospital, the local health bureau said.

The World Health Organization office in China said it was in close contact with Chinese health authorities and that measures taken so far to treat and quarantine sickened people were appropriate. It did not comment on the move to seal off the town.

"This form of pneumonic plague is probably the least common but the most severe," said WHO's spokeswoman in China, Vivian Tan. "It has a very high fatality rate and generally spreads quite easily. So we're certainly concerned about the situation."

In Ziketan, authorities have said homes and shops should be disinfected, and residents should wear masks when they go out, said a food seller surnamed Han who runs a stall at the Crystal Alley Market. Around 80 percent of the town's shops were closed on Monday, Han said, and prices of disinfectants and some vegetables have already tripled.

"People are so scared. There are few people on the streets," Han said by telephone. "There are police guarding the quarantine center at the township hospital but not on the streets."

According to WHO, pneumonic plague is one of the deadliest infectious diseases, capable of killing humans within 24 hours of infection. It is spread through the air and can be passed from person to person through coughing.

The Web site of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says people infected must be given antibiotics within 24 hours of first showing symptoms, while people who have had direct contact with those infected can protect themselves by taking antibiotics for seven days.

A woman who lives in Ziketan, who refused to give her name when reached by telephone, said county officials distributed flyers and made television and radio announcements on how to prevent infection. The woman said police checkpoints were set up in a 17-mile (28-kilometer) radius around Ziketan and residents were not allowed to leave.

The situation in Ziketan was stable, said an official surnamed Wang at the local disease control center, who added the measures taken were "scientific, orderly, effective and in accordance with the law."

Officials refused to give further details about the situation or say how the herder was first infected.

Pneumonic plague is caused by the same bacteria that causes bubonic plague — the Black Death that killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages. Bubonic plague is usually transmitted by flea bites.

Pneumonic plague occurs when the bacteria infects the lungs, or after complications from bubonic plague that goes untreated.

People infected with the plague usually experience flu-like symptoms including fever, chills, muscle aches, vomiting and nausea, after an incubation period of 3-7 days. If treated early with antibiotics, plague is curable.

Since 2001, the WHO has reported six plague outbreaks, though some may go unreported because they often happen in remote areas. Between 1998 and 2008, nearly 24,000 cases have been reported, including about 2,000 deaths, in Africa, Asia, the Americas and eastern Europe. Most of the world's cases are in Africa.

A 2006 WHO report from an international meeting on plague cited a Chinese government disease expert as saying that most cases of the plague in China's northwest occur when hunters are contaminated while skinning infected animals. The expert said at the time that due to the region's remoteness, the disease killed more than half the infected people.

The report also said that since the 1990s, there was a rise in plague cases in humans — from fewer than 10 in the 1980s to nearly 100 cases in 1996 and 254 in 2000. Official statistics posted on the Health Ministry's Web site showed no cases of plague last year and the previous year.

In 2004, eight villagers in Qinghai died of plague, most of them infected after killing or eating wild marmots, which are relatives of gophers and prairie dogs. Marmots live in the grasslands of China's northwest and Mongolia, where villagers often hunt them for meat.

WHO spokeswoman Tan said China was no stranger to dealing with the plague.

"In cases like this, we encourage the authorities to identify cases, to investigate any suspicious symptoms among close contacts and to treat confirmed cases as soon as possible. So far, they have done exactly that," Tan said. "There have been sporadic cases reported around the country in the last few years so the authorities do have the experience to deal with this."

[tcmgpt13]

China lifts blockade around plague-stricken town - Yahoo! News

Sun Aug 9, 2:16 am ET

BEIJING – A blockade around a remote northwest Chinese town where deadly pneumonic plague killed three people and sickened nine was lifted after no new infections were reported, an official said Sunday.
The blockade of Ziketan in an ethnically Tibetan area in Qinghai province ended Saturday night after 10 days, said a government spokesman who would only give his surname, Wang.

Police had set up checkpoints around the farming town of 10,000 people, sealing it off to prevent the spread of the disease that can kill in as few as 24 hours if left untreated.

Wang said nine patients were recovering and in stable condition though they were required to stay for five days in a hospital for observation. Another 332 people quarantined for having "direct or indirect contact" with the patients were released.

The outbreak, first detected July 30, killed three people who were neighbors. Most of the other sickened people were relatives of the first victim, a 32-year-old herdsman who became ill after burying his dog.

China has had previous cases of plague, a disease that circulates mainly among small animals like rats and mice but can also infect humans. Experts have said most cases in China's northwest occur when hunters are contaminated while skinning infected animals.

Pneumonic plague is the least common and most deadly form of the disease. It can be directly spread between humans since the bacteria is airborne and can easily be inhaled by those in close contact with infected patients. But if treated early with antibiotics, it is curable.