“Pneumonic Plague Is Diagnosed in China - The New York Times” plus 2 more

---

• Pneumonic Plague Is Diagnosed in China - The New York Times
• Plague (Black Death) bacterial infection information and facts - National Geographic
• The Three Forms of Plague: Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septicemic - The Great Courses Daily News

Pneumonic Plague Is Diagnosed in China - The New York Times Posted: 13 Nov 2019 12:00 AM PST BEIJING — Two people in China were diagnosed with plague, setting off a panic on Tuesday about the potential spread of the highly infectious and fatal disease and prompting China's government to warn citizens to take precautions to protect themselves. Beijing officials said the two infected people came from Inner Mongolia, a sparsely populated region of northern China. They sought treatment on Tuesday in a hospital in Beijing's Chaoyang District, where they were diagnosed with pneumonic plague, according to the government office of the district. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Weibo, the microblogging site, that there was no need for Beijing residents to panic and that the risks of further transmission are "extremely low." The authorities quickly isolated the patients, conducted epidemiological investigations on the people who could have been exposed and disinfected all the relevant sites, the CDC said. They have also strengthened monitoring of patients with fever, it added. Pneumonic plague is one of three types of infectious disease known as plague caused by the same bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Patients diagnosed with pneumonic plague, which causes high fevers and shortness of breath, sometimes first contract the closely related and more well-known disease, bubonic plague. Fears are mounting in China over a possible outbreak of the disease, once known as the Black Death, which killed tens of millions of people in medieval Europe, and spread through Asia and Africa. Last month, the authorities in China said they would strengthen quarantine measures to prevent plague from entering the country after Madagascar was struck by a fast-spreading outbreak of the disease. It is unclear when the cases were first detected in China but residents are asking why the authorities took so long to diagnose and disclose the problem. Li Jifeng, a doctor at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital where the two people sought treatment, wrote on WeChat, a social media platform, that the patients sought treatment on Nov. 3. That post, which has since been deleted, was published by CN-Healthcare, a website that covers health care news in China. Dr. Li could not be reached for comment and Beijing Chaoyang Hospital declined to comment. Dr. Li wrote that the patient she saw was a middle-aged man, who had a fever and complained of breathing difficulties for 10 days. He sought treatment at a hospital in Inner Mongolia but his condition did not improve. His wife also developed a fever and respiratory problems. "After so many years of specialist training, I'm familiar with the diagnosis and treatment of most respiratory diseases," wrote Dr. Li. "But this time, I looked and looked at it. I couldn't guess what pathogen caused this pneumonia. I only knew it was rare." On why the authorities took so long to make the announcement, Dr. Li wrote that signs of any infectious disease need to be repeatedly verified and investigated, and such announcements cannot be "transmitted casually." The police quarantined the emergency room in the Chaoyang Hospital on Monday night, the news outlet Caixin reported, citing residents. On Tuesday, Chinese censors instructed online news aggregators in China to "block and control" online discussion related to news about the plague, according to a directive seen by The New York Times. Skeptical Chinese internet users have charged the government with being slow to disclose news about the disease, which is transmitted between humans and kills even faster than the more-common bubonic form. China has a history of covering up and being slow to announce infectious outbreaks, prompting many people to call for transparency this time. "The plague is not the most terrifying part," one user wrote on Weibo. "What's even scarier is the information not being made public." If left untreated, pneumonic plague is always fatal, according to the World Health Organization. But recovery rates are high if detected and treated with antibiotics, within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms, the agency said. Another user on Weibo called on the government to disclose how the patients arrived in Beijing from Inner Mongolia. If the patients traveled on their own using public transportation they could have spread the disease to many people. "How many people have they encountered potentially?" the user wrote. "Only 2 kilometers away from Chaoyang Hospital. I'm shaking and trembling." According to China's health commission, six people have died in the country from the plague since 2014. The most recent case was recorded earlier this year. Officials have warned people to avoid traveling to infected areas and contact with rodents. Elsie Chen and Zoe Mou contributed research.

Plague (Black Death) bacterial infection information and facts - National Geographic Posted: 20 Aug 2019 12:00 AM PDT Plague is one of the deadliest diseases in human history, second only to smallpox. A bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and associated fleas, plague readily leaps to humans in close contact. Plague outbreaks are the most notorious epidemics in history, inciting fears of plague's use as a biological weapon. Today, plague cases still pop up sporadically around the world—including in the United States or China, where a suspected case was recently reported in the Inner Mongolia region. But the disease is no longer as deadly as it can be treated with antibiotics when available. Here's what you need to know about the plague, including how it spreads, the difference between bubonic and pneumonic plague, the most infamous plague pandemics in history, and why it's not all that unusual to see modern cases of the disease. Stages of plague Plague 101 What is plague? How many people died from the Black Death and the other plague pandemics? Learn about the bacterium behind the plague disease, how factors like trade and urbanization caused it to spread to every continent except Antarctica, and how three devastating pandemics helped shape modern medicine. For hundreds of years, what caused plague outbreaks remained mysterious, and shrouded in superstitions. But keen observations and advances in microscopes eventually helped unveil the true culprit. In 1894, Alexandre Yersin discovered the bacterium responsible for causing plague: Yersinia pestis. Y. pestis is an extraordinarily virulent, rod-shaped bacterium. Y. pestis disables the immune system of its host by injecting toxins into defense cells, such as macrophages, that are tasked with detecting bacterial infections. Once these cells are knocked out, the bacteria can multiply unhindered. Many small mammals act as hosts to the bacteria, including rats, mice, chipmunks, prairie dogs, rabbits, and squirrels. During an enzootic cycle, Y. pestis can circulate at low rates within populations of rodents, mostly undetected because it doesn't produce an outbreak. When the bacteria pass to other species, during an epizootic cycle, humans face a greater risk for becoming infected with plague bacteria. Rats have long been thought to be the main vector of plague outbreaks, because of their intimate connection with humans in urban areas. Scientists have more recently discovered that a flea that lives on rats, Xenopsylla cheopis, primarily causes human cases of plague. When rodents die from the plague, fleas jump to a new host, biting them and transmitting Y. pestis. Transmission also occurs by handling tissue or blood from a plague-infected animal, or inhalation of infected droplets. Bubonic plague, the disease's most common form, refers to telltale buboes—painfully swollen lymph nodes—that appear around the groin, armpit, or neck. The skin sores become black, leading to its nickname during pandemics as "Black Death." Initial symptoms of this early stage include vomiting, nausea, and fever. Pneumonic plague, the most infectious type, is an advanced stage of plague that moves into the lungs. During this stage, the disease is passed directly, person to person, through airborne particles coughed from an infected person's lungs. If untreated, bubonic and pneumonic plague can progress to septicemic plague, infecting the bloodstream. If left untreated, pneumonic and septicemic plague kills almost 100 percent of those it infects. Infamous plagues Three particularly well-known pandemics occurred before the cause of plague was discovered. The first well-documented crisis was the Plague of Justinian, which began in 542 A.D. Named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, the pandemic killed up to 10,000 people a day in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey), according to ancient historians. Modern estimates indicate half of Europe's population—almost 100 million deaths—was wiped out before the plague subsided in the 700s. Arguably the most infamous plague outbreak was the so-called Black Death, a multi-century pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It was believed to start in China in 1334, spreading along trade routes and reaching Europe via Sicilian ports in the late 1340s. The plague killed an estimated 25 million people, almost a third of the continent's population. The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which 70,000 residents died. The cause of plague wasn't discovered until the most recent global outbreak, which started in China in 1860 and didn't officially end until 1959. The pandemic caused roughly 10 million deaths. The plague was brought to North America in the early 1900s by ships, and thereafter spread to small mammals throughout the United States. The high rate of fatality during these pandemics meant that the dead were often buried in quickly dug mass graves. From teeth of these plague victims, scientists have pieced together a family tree of Y. pestis, discovering that the strain from the Justinian Plague was related to, but distinct from, other strains of the plague. (Read how modern plague strains descended from a strain that arose during the Black Death pandemic.) Plague in modern society Plague still exists in various parts of the world, popping up sporadically and followed actively by the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases have appeared in Africa since the 1990s. Between 2004 to 2014, the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported the majority of plague cases worldwide, with 4,630 human cases and 349 deaths. Scientists link the prevalence of plague in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the ecosystem—primarily mountain tropical climate. More recently, plague broke out in Madagascar in 2017, causing more than 2,300 cases. The United States, China, India, Vietnam, and Mongolia are among the other countries that have had confirmed human plague cases in recent years. Within the U.S., on average seven human cases of plague appear each year, emerging primarily in California and the Southwest. Today, most people survive plague with rapid diagnosis and antibiotic treatment. Good sanitation practices and pest control minimize contact with infected fleas and rodents to help prevent plague pandemics. Plague is classified as a Category A pathogen, because it readily passes between people and could result in high mortality rates if untreated. This classification has helped stoke fears that Y. pestis could be used as a biological weapon if distributed in aerosol form. As a small airborne particle it would cause pneumonic plague, the most lethal and contagious form. Of conservation concern, federally endangered black-footed ferrets contract another form of the plague, sylvatic plague, from nearby prairie dogs. Plague can decimate prairie dog populations, which are a critical food source for black-footed ferrets. Scientists have started to administer a vaccine to prevent plague outbreaks in prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets. This story has been updated. It was originally published on August 20, 2019.

The Three Forms of Plague: Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septicemic - The Great Courses Daily News Posted: 12 Feb 2021 12:00 AM PST By Dorsey Armstrong, Ph.D., Purdue University When we talk of the plague, we tend to think of all the patients being affected similarly, as the infection was caused by the same bacillus. However, what we call the plague actually had three different forms: the bubonic, the pneumonic, and the septicemic. So how were these forms different? The European plague of the Middle Ages is generally thought of being a bubonic plague, but it had two more forms with different symptoms. (Image: Everett Collection/Shutterstock) The Bubonic Plague: The Good News The most common manifestation of the plague was the bubonic form. In most people who caught the plague, large swollen areas developed around the lymph nodes, usually at the neck, groin, and armpits. These lumps were called buboes in Latin, and so it is from this word that we get the most common name we use for the Black Death: the bubonic plague. First, let's check the good news: If you got the bubonic form of the plague, you had around an 18% chance of surviving. While that doesn't sound terribly encouraging, it's much better than the chances you had of surviving the two other forms. In this respect—the chances of survival—the bubonic plague is very similar to a modern zoonotic disease: Ebola. 'Treatment' of Bubonic Plague Signaled by swelling in the neck, groin, and armpit area, human-to-human transmission seems to be almost impossible in the bubonic form of the plague. Although, it may have occurred in some instances when doctors or caretakers tried to effect a cure by lancing the buboes. First-person accounts of this process indicate that the pus that came out when this operation was performed was disgusting not only in appearance, but also, and particularly, in terms of the smell. A few accounts relate that the doctor and others in the room were so overcome by the stench that they often fainted or vomited. But, again, this seems to be the one form of plague that you might, just might, survive. Learn more about the spread of the Black Death in Europe. The Pneumonic Form of the Plague Pneumonic plague was the second most common form of plague, and, as the name suggests, it affected the lungs. In this case, the Yersinia pestis bacteria would lodge in the sufferer's respiratory system, rather than in the lymphatic system, as is the case with the bubonic form. It started, usually, with a patient zero who'd been infected with the bubonic form of the disease, which then made its way from their lymphatic system into the respiratory system. What was uniquely terrifying about this form of plague—and that's not to say that the other forms aren't also terrifying—is that it was easily transmissible. A doctor or friend or relative taking care of someone infected with the pneumonic form of plague was going to be coming in contact with blood, sputum, and saliva—all containing the bacterium—and they would usually themselves become infected. This is a transcript from the video series The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus. Hazmat Suits and Pneumonic Symptoms Plague doctors often wore beak-like masks stuffed with herbs, which were thought to prevent the plague infection. (Image: I. Columbina, Paul Fürst/Public domain) You might imagine that there was no such thing as a hazmat suit to prevent infection in the medieval ages. But, in fact, somewhat by accident, plague doctors did come up with an early form of hazmat suit. The most important part was a birdlike mask that covered the doctor's face. The beak of this head covering was filled with fresh-smelling herbs and flowers. It was popularly believed that the plague infection was spread due to some sort of bad-smelling miasma, so a lot of people figured if they could hold something sweet-smelling in front of their faces, they could avoid infection. But, for now, let's get back to pneumonic plague and the terrifying fact of human-to-human transmission that this form brought with it. Also horrifying was the way one would die: usually because they were drowning in their own blood. Now the good news here was that from the onset of symptoms to death was usually just two days. The bad news was that the suffering was intense, and the survival rate was less than 1%, and even that statistic might be a tad optimistic. So, if you caught the pneumonic version of the plague, you would die, and die quickly. The Septicemic Form of the Plague The third and least common form of plague is known as septicemic, which infected the blood. Like pneumonic plague, this form can start out as bubonic and then the infection can move to a different bodily system. When plague bacteria enter the bloodstream, they cause something known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. In these instances, tiny blood clots start to form throughout the body, which results in something called localized ischemic necrosis, which is just a fancy way of saying that portions of your body tissue start to die off due to lack of circulation. If you've got septicemic plague, and it's pretty well advanced, your blood starts to lose the ability to clot properly. If your blood doesn't clot, it starts to seep into other parts of your body, like your skin and internal organs. This produces red and black patchy rashes and bumps on the skin that look rather like lots of pimples, but all over the body. Learn more about the epidemiology of plague. Plague and a Quick Death Most scholars think that these visible indicators are what medieval people meant when they said of a dead person that he or she bore the sign of the plague. A final common sign of advanced septicemic plague is the vomiting of blood. But, if you've contracted septicemic plague, you could die within 24 hours of showing symptoms. In some cases, people were reported as having been feeling fine at nine a.m., not so good at noon, and dead at four. So, the bubonic form was the most common form, but the least likely to kill you; the pneumonic, though not as common, was not only almost certain to kill you, but was also highly infectious. Finally, the septicemic form of the plague was the rarest, but could kill you within a day of you becoming symptomatic. Common Questions about Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septicemic Plague Q. How did bubonic plague get its name? Bubonic plague got its name from the most visible symptom of the disease—swellings of the lymph nodes of the neck, groin, and armpits, which were known as buboes in Latin. Q. How was the pneumonic plague different from other forms of the plague? Pneumonic plague was the second most common form of plague, and it affected the lungs. This form of plague was easily transmissible, since the bodily fluids such as the blood, sputum, and saliva would carry the infection. Q. What were the symptoms of septicemic plague? In septicemic plague, blood would start to lose the ability to clot properly. It would seep into other parts of the body, like the skin and internal organs. This produced red and black patchy rashes and bumps on the skin that looked like pimples. Keep Reading The High Middle Ages: The Siege of Nicaea by the Crusaders Explanations For Anti-Jewish Sentiment in the High Middle Ages Heresy in the High Middle Ages

You are subscribed to email updates from "pneumonic plague" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States