City sealed off after man dies of bubonic plague in China

A Wax figure representing someone infected with bubonic plague. The figure was created by British medical artist Eleanor Crook.

The Chinese city of Yumen in the northwestern province of Gansu has been sealed off and 151 people placed in quarantine since last week after a man died of bubonic plague.

The 30 000 people living in the city are not being allowed to leave, and police at roadblocks on the perimeter of the city are telling motorists to find alternative routes, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

Read: What is the plague?

The 38-year-old victim died last Wednesday and had been in contact with a dead marmot, a small furry animal which lives on grasslands and is related to the squirrel (see picture below).

"The city has enough rice, flour and oil to supply all its residents for up to one month," the report added. 

"Local residents and those in quarantine are all in stable condition." CCTV said "authorities are not allowing anyone to leave", although a previous report by the China Daily newspaper said "four quarantine sectors" had been set up in the city. 

No further cases had been reported by Tuesday.

Plague is categorised as a "Class A infectious disease" in China, a report by the official news agency Xinhua said, "the most serious under China's Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases".

Image: Marmots, like these in Zuogong county in the Tibet Autonomous Region, are found all over the grasslands in western China. Photo: Xinhua via South China Morning Post



Read: The plague in Madagascar in 2013

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection most well known for the "Black Death", a virulent epidemic of the disease that killed tens of millions of people in 14th-century Europe.

Primarily an animal illness, it is extremely rare in humans. According to the World Health Organisation it is one of the most deadly infectious diseases and patients can die 24 hours after infection. 

Modern antibiotics are effective in treating plague, but without prompt treatment, the disease can cause serious illness or death.

There are generally three types of plague: pneumonic plague in the respiratory system, bubonic plague in the lymphatic system and septicaemic plague in the circulatory system. 

Read: The plague is back!

In August 2009, China reported an outbreak of pneumonic plague in western Qinghai province after a herdsman died of high fever and haemoptysis (coughing up of blood from the respiratory tract), according to WHO records. 

The source of the outbreak in 2009 was also a wild marmot, the epidemiological investigation showed.