Free Republic

A 15-year-old boy has died from bubonic plague in western Mongolia, according to government health officials. The teenager caught the plague after hunting and eating marmot, according to Dorj Narangerel, spokesperson for Mongolia's Ministry of Health. He died on Sunday. Marmots are large ground squirrels, a type of rodent, that have historically been linked to plague outbreaks in the region. Tests confirmed the teenager had contracted bubonic plague and authorities imposed quarantine measures in the Tugrug district of Gobi-Altai province. Mongolia has recorded 692 cases of marmot plague from 1928 to 2018. Of those, 513 died of the disease, equivalent...

A Mongolian couple has died of the bubonic plague after eating raw marmot kidney, triggering a quarantine that left tourists stranded in a remote region for days, officials said Monday. The ethnic Kazakh couple died on May 1 in Nogoonnuur soum, in Mongolia's westernmost province of Bayan-Ulgii, which borders Russia and China. A six-day quarantine was declared for people in the region, preventing nine tourists from Russia, Germany and Switzerland from leaving. The quarantine was lifted on May 6 after no other cases of the plague were reported. Authorities have warned people against eating raw marmot meat because it can...