The Chinese region of Inner Mongolia is on high alert after a suspected case of bubonic plague. A disease that caused the Black Death of 1347 to 1351, that claimed an estimated 50 to 200 million people in Europe, the Middle East and parts of North Africa.
Bubonic Plague is caused by bacteria and transmitted through flea bites and infected animals, it is known to be one of the deadliest bacterial infections in human history.
The case was discovered in the city of Bayannur, located northwest of Beijing, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.
A hospital alerted municipal authorities of the patient's case on Saturday. By Sunday, local authorities had issued a citywide Level 3 warning for plague prevention, the warning will stay in place until the end of the year, according to Xinhua.
Bubonic plague presents with painful, swollen lymph nodes, a fever, chills, and intermittent coughing.
Health authorities are now urging people to take extra precautions to minimize the risk of human-to-human transmission, to avoid hunting or eating animals that could cause infection.
"At present, there is a risk of a human plague epidemic spreading in this city. The public should improve its self-protection awareness and ability, and report abnormal health conditions promptly," the local health authority said, according to state-run newspaper China Daily.
Chinese authorities warned the public to report findings of dead or sick marmots, a type of large ground squirrel that is eaten in some parts of China.
Sick Marmots are responsible for the death of about 63,000 people in neighbouring northeast Mongolia by the 1911 pneumonic plague epidemic.
The epidemic was contained within a year but marmot-related plague infections have persisted decades later. Last week, two cases of bubonic plague were confirmed in Mongolia when brothers ate marmot meat.
Last May, a couple in Mongolia died from bubonic plague after eating the raw kidney of a marmot, thought to be a precursor to good health.
The resurgence of antibiotics has helped to contain plague outbreaks, preventing the type of rapid spread witnessed in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Although modern medicine can treat the plague, it has not eliminated it entirely due to bacterial evolution that has given way to more resistant strains to antibiotics.
The recent comeback of Bubonic Plague has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to categorize it as a re-emerging disease.
Anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people get the plague every year, according to the World Health Organisation the number of cases is too modest an estimate since it doesn't account for unreported cases.
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