China plague death prompts alert.... (Pneumonic plague)

BBC ^ | August 2nd , 2009

[TaraP]

Thousands of people have been placed in quarantine in north-western China after a man died of pneumonic plague.

Chinese authorities say the man who died was a 32-year-old herdsman from a sparsely populated area mostly inhabited by Tibetans.

Most of the other 11 people infected with the disease are relatives of the dead man.

The local government has not yet said when the man died but it has sealed off the town where the outbreak occurred.

It says there are enough supplies to feed the 10,000 or so people who live in the town of Ziketan, near Xinghai in Qinghai province, during the quarantine period.

[G Larry]

Is this only a problem if you’re sounding out words in Chinese?

[JRandomFreeper]

When I first saw the first article posted here, I thought "so what? I live in NM right now, and plague is here, not common but here. I didn't realize that it was the pnuemonic type. That is a completely different kettle of fish.

Yikes.

/johnny

[KoRn]

.

[TASMANIANRED]

Pneumonic plague is major bad mojo.

[gaijin]

Hmm...interesting. Anthrax is rare but not unheard of for herds of animals, but a nice thing is that if one sufferer coughs, the next one cannot come down with it.

So...this is completely different, right? As it’s air transmissible...?

It’s really THE plague, then? Or just “A plague”...?

It’s interesting because some Sneaky Petes think the muzzies are dinking around with THE plague as a weapon.

[jimtorr]

Yes. Bubonic plague is not terribly contagious without an abundant vector, but pneumonic plague can be as contagious as the flu.

[JRandomFreeper]

There are two types of plague, one is transmitted by fleas, lice, and ticks, the other is transmitted via the air. One is bad, the other is MUCH worse.

/johnny

[jimtorr]

It’s not really known what the “Black Plague” of Medieval Europe was. It’s thought that there may have been two diseases being passed at the same time, or two forms of the same disease.

Whichever, one form seems to have been passed by blood infection through fleas and characterized by the black buboes, and the other, far more virulent, possibly passed through aerosol produced by coughing. The “pneumonic” form seems to have killed its victims very quickly.

Both forms of the plague seemed to require dense population and poor hygiene to kill large numbers.

[BIGLOOK]

Y. pestis ping

[BipolarBob]

I suppose it would be unlikely that the Tibetans would somehow have a resistance to this plague and the invasive Chinese not. It chaps my backside that China simply “took” Tibet as the world looked on.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[Oldpuppymax]

Guess it must be time to offer free flights to the US, right Hussein?

[Tailback]

dense population and poor hygiene

Wow, who'd of thunk China would be a place this would show up?