A case of bubonic plague has been confirmed in Yinchuan, the capital of Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
The health authority of Ningxia reported the case was imported from North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The patient, a 55-year-old from Ordos, is in critical condition at the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University in Yinchuan.
In response, emergency protocols on plague prevention and control have been initiated.
WHAT IS PLAGUE?
Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. There are three forms of plague – bubonic (which infects the lymph nodes), pneumonic (which infects the lungs) and septicemic (which infects the blood).
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Plague is found in some small mammals and their fleas. It is usually contracted when people are bitten by infected fleas; those bitten then develop the bubonic form of the plague.
Pneumonic plague can be spread by person-to-person transmission through the inhalation of infected respiratory droplets according to WHO.
Bubonic plague was the disease that triggered the “Black Death” pandemic back in the mid-1300s.
However, experts say we needn’t worry about an outbreak – these days we have effective treatments for bubonic plague.
“Unlike in the 14th century, we now have an understanding of how this disease is transmitted,” Dr. Shanthi Kappagoda, an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, told Healthline.
“We know how to prevent it — avoid handling sick or dead animals in areas where there is transmission,” she said.
“We are also able to treat patients who are infected with effective antibiotics, and can give antibiotics to people who may have been exposed to the bacteria [and] prevent them [from] getting sick.”
