Town Quarantined as Deadly Pneumonic Plague Strikes in China
Staff writers - The Austrailian
ONE man is dead, 11 others are in hospital and an entire town has been quarantined as one of the world's deadliest diseases strikes in China.
Chinaview.cn reports the town of Ziketan in northwest China, home to 10,000 people, has been placed under quarantine after a 32-year-old herdsman died from pneumonic plague.
The World Health Organisation says pneumonic plague is the most virulent form of plague and if untreated, patients can die within 24 hours.
It is caused when the same bacteria that occurs in bubonic plague reaches the lungs, and is then spread from person to person by coughing.
Mortality is always very high.
Officials from the Health Bureau of Qinghai Province said anyone with a fever or cough who has been Ziketan town and its vicinity after July 16 should go to hospital.
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