Plague

The year is 1347 and people’s necks are swelling, they’re running high fevers, parts of them are turning black, some are even dropping like flies and — wait, what? It’s not 1347? It’s not the Black Death ? No, it’s 2019 and people are getting the bubonic plague . In fact, 28 people in China’s Inner Mongolia province are now under quarantine because a hunter caught the plague after eating a wild rabbit, authorities reported Sunday. The hunter is the third Chinese case of the plague revealed within a week. So, is the plague making a comeback? What is the plague? Most people have heard of the plague by flipping through pages in their history textbook. Known as the Black Death, it claimed anywhere from 30 to 60 per cent of Europe’s population in the 14th century. There are two types: bubonic and pneumonic. The bubonic plague is the most common and people can get it because of an infected flea’s bite or from handling an infected, dead animal. The bacteria, Yersinia pestis , cause...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] A history of the plague in China, from ancient times to Mao -- and now    CNN https://ift.tt/338fOp2

Mon Nov 18, 2019 / 2:56 AM EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported a third case of bubonic plague on Sunday after two other plague cases were revealed last week, but the disease remains rare despite its fearsome reputation and authorities say the cases appear unrelated. HOW DOES INFECTION OCCUR? Two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined in Beijing suffering from pneumonic plague, authorities said last week. A 55-year old man from the same region was later diagnosed with bubonic plague after eating wild rabbit meat, the health commission said. Both types of plague are caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium. Bites from infected fleas are the most common cause of bubonic plague infection, but the pneumonic variant - where the bacterium is breathed into the lungs - is more dangerous because it is spread through coughing. A rarer third variant of the diseases is septicaemic plague, which infects the bloodstream. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? Plague has killed tens of millions of...

This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of eclectic and under-the-radar health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by  clicking here . It's not a headline that you expect to see in 2019. But plague is back in the news after China reported three cases of the infectious disease earlier this month. The first cases were recorded in a middle-aged couple from the remote region of Inner Mongolia, who were sent to Beijing for observation after struggling to breathe. The third case emerged last weekend : A hunter from the same region was diagnosed with bubonic plague after catching and eating a wild rabbit. About 28 people who were in close contact with the hunter were also put in quarantine. It's actually the second time this year plague has been found in the region; in May, a Mongolian couple died reportedly after eating raw marmot kidney , leading to a six-day quarantine in...

CREDIT: National Institue of Allergy Infectious Diseases × A hunter ate a wild rabbit and caught black plague CREDIT: National Institue of Allergy Infectious Diseases Twenty-eight people are in quarantine in China’s northern Inner Mongolia province after a hunter was diagnosed with bubonic plague Saturday, the local health commission said. According to state-run news agency Xinhua, the unidentified patient was believed to have become infected with the plague after catching and eating a wild rabbit in Inner Mongolia’s Huade county. Bubonic plague is the more common version of the disease and is rarely transmitted between humans. The case comes after the Chinese government announced on November 12 that two people were being treated for the pneumonic plague in the capital of Beijing — the same strand that caused the Black Death, one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Pneumonic plague is the most virulent and deadly strain of the disease. It originate...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Climate change can raise risk of plague    South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/2rl1H2A

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported a third case of bubonic plague on Sunday after two other plague cases were revealed last week, but the disease remains rare despite its fearsome reputation and authorities say the cases appear unrelated. HOW DOES INFECTION OCCUR? Two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined in Beijing suffering from pneumonic plague, authorities said last week. A 55-year old man from the same region was later diagnosed with bubonic plague after eating wild rabbit meat, the health commission said. Both types of plague are caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium. Bites from infected fleas are the most common cause of bubonic plague infection, but the pneumonic variant - where the bacterium is breathed into the lungs - is more dangerous because it is spread through coughing. A rarer third variant of the diseases is septicaemic plague, which infects the bloodstream. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? Plague has killed tens of millions of people around the world in three maj...

Two cases of plague , the illness known for causing the Black Death, have been reported in China, CNN reports. What we know: The two patients are from the Chinese province of inner Mongolia and were diagnosed by doctors in Beijing. Both individuals are receiving treatment in Beijing's Chaoyang District, where authorities say they've implemented control measures to prevent the infection's spread. The plague had been detected in the region earlier this year as well when a Mongolian couple died from the disease after consuming raw marmot kidney. Background: European outbreaks of the plague during the Middle Ages killed roughly 50 million people. Advancements in antibiotics have made the disease fairly treatable, but have not eradicated it entirely. The World Health Organization reported over 3,248 cases of the plague worldwide from 2010 to 2015. The plague is caused by bacteria and transmitted through infected animals and flea bites. It comes in three forms , i...

Mon Nov 18, 2019 / 2:56 AM EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported a third case of bubonic plague on Sunday after two other plague cases were revealed last week, but the disease remains rare despite its fearsome reputation and authorities say the cases appear unrelated. HOW DOES INFECTION OCCUR? Two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined in Beijing suffering from pneumonic plague, authorities said last week. A 55-year old man from the same region was later diagnosed with bubonic plague after eating wild rabbit meat, the health commission said. Both types of plague are caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium. Bites from infected fleas are the most common cause of bubonic plague infection, but the pneumonic variant - where the bacterium is breathed into the lungs - is more dangerous because it is spread through coughing. A rarer third variant of the diseases is septicaemic plague, which infects the bloodstream. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? Plague has killed tens of millions of...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported a third case of bubonic plague on Sunday after two other plague cases were revealed last week, but the disease remains rare despite its fearsome reputation and authorities say the cases appear unrelated. HOW DOES INFECTION OCCUR? Two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined in Beijing suffering from pneumonic plague, authorities said last week. A 55-year old man from the same region was later diagnosed with bubonic plague after eating wild rabbit meat, the health commission said. Both types of plague are caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium. Bites from infected fleas are the most common cause of bubonic plague infection, but the pneumonic variant - where the bacterium is breathed into the lungs - is more dangerous because it is spread through coughing. A rarer third variant of the diseases is septicaemic plague, which infects the bloodstream. WHAT ARE THE RISKS? Plague has killed tens of millions of people around the world in three maj...

If you thought it went the way of bloodletting and medicinal leeches, think again. Two people have just come down with the plague. Yes, the plague. In China, two patients diagnosed with the infectious disease are receiving treatment in a Beijing hospital. Public health officials are working to make sure the disease doesn’t spread to others. But the news has reportedly sparked panic among citizens. The plague comes in three varieties: Pneumonic plague is an infection of the lungs; septicemic plague is a blood infection; and bubonic plague affects the lymphatic system. That last variety is the one we know as the Black Death, the epidemic that wracked Europe in the Middle Ages. Pneumonic plague may be less famous than the bubonic form, but it’s even more deadly. And it’s pneumonic plague that has now been identified in China. It’s not clear exactly how the two infected people caught it, but they didn’t catch it in Beijing: They came from Inner Mongolia and traveled to the capital see...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Inner Mongolia reported a fresh, confirmed case of bubonic plague on Sunday, despite an earlier declaration by the country’s health officials that the risk of an outbreak was minimal. The health commission of the autonomous region said a 55-year-old man was diagnosed with the disease after he ate wild rabbit meat on Nov. 5. Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague globally and can advance and spread to the lungs, which is more severe type called pneumonic plague, according to the World Health Organization. The Inner Mongolia case follows two that were confirmed earlier this month in Beijing. In both cases, the two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined at a facility in the capital after being diagnosed with pneumonic plague, health authorities said at the time. The Inner Mongolia health commission said it found no evidence so far to link the most recent case to the earlier two cases in Beijing. The patient in Inner Mongolia is now isolate...

× 2 people just got the plague in China — yes, the Black Death plague Two people in China are being treated for plague, authorities said Tuesday. It’s the second time the disease, the same one that caused the Black Death, one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, has been detected in the region — in May, a Mongolian couple died from bubonic plague after eating the raw kidney of a marmot, a local folk health remedy. The two recent patients, from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, were diagnosed with pneumonic plague by doctors in the Chinese capital Beijing, according to state media Xinhua . They are now receiving treatment in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, and authorities have implemented preventative control measures. Plague, caused by bacteria and transmitted through flea bites and infected animals, can develop in three different forms. Bubonic plague causes swollen lymph nodes, while septicemic plague infects the blood and pneumonic plague infects the ...

An anteroposterior (AP) chest x-ray of a plague patient revealing bilateral infection, greater on the patient's left side, which was diagnosed as a case of pneumonic plague, caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Pneumonic plague may develop from inhaling infectious droplets or may develop from untreated bubonic or septicemic plague after the bacteria spread to the lungs. The pneumonia may cause respiratory failure and shock. Pneumonic plague is the most serious form of the disease and is the only form of plague that can be spread from person to person (by infectious droplets). Image courtesy CDC/Dr. Jack Poland, 1975. Smith Collection/Gado A couple from China's remote Inner Mongolia province traveled to Beijing earlier in the week seeking treatment for symptoms including fever, chills, nausea and vomiting. On Tuesday, Chinese officials confirmed that the couple had pneumonic plague, a severe form of the so-called "Black Death" that decimated European and Afr...

The Chinese government’s response to this month’s outbreak of plague has been marked by temerity and some fear, which history suggests is entirely appropriate. But not all fear is the same, and Beijing seems to be afraid of the wrong things. Rather than being concerned about the germs and their spread, the government seems mostly motivated by a desire to manage public reaction about the disease. Those efforts, however, have failed—and the public’s response is now veering toward a sort of plague-inspired panic that’s not at all justified by the facts. On Nov. 3, Li Jifeng, a doctor at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, the capital’s key infectious diseases treatment and quarantine center, attended to a middle-aged man who was struggling to breathe and his wife, who was also running a high fever and likewise gasping for air. The couple had been ailing for at least 10 days by the time Li saw them. They had initially sought care some 250 miles north of China’s capital in Inner Mongolia, a frigid...

The same day reports from China signaled the return of the plague (aka  Black Death )—a nightmarish disease you might have thought disappeared with the Dark Ages— new estimates were released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that infections and deaths are on the rise in the U.S. from another scary cause: superbugs, also known as antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Unlike superbug infections, plague is treatable with effective antibiotics—for now, at least. With resistance on the rise to all sorts of antibiotics, let's hope things stay that way.  The latest CDC estimates are that more than 2.8 million people in the U.S. get sick each year from superbugs, and these infections are the primary cause of death for 35,000 of them. Though quite a bit higher than the agency's last estimates in 2013, the CDC figure still likely understates the problem. In fact, it is more than four times lower than an alternative set of estimates published last year by infectio...

Washington: Two patients in China have been diagnosed with plague, the deadly and infectious disease tied to historic pandemics, local media reported. The people, from Inner Mongolia, were treated for pneumonic plague in Beijing's Chaoyang district, local health officials said on Tuesday, according to Caixin and state-media Xinhua. The news outlets reported the patients received "proper treatment," and disease control measures and prevention methods have been taken. According to Caixin, the patients were treated at Chaoyang Hospital, which has since replaced all chairs in its emergency room. The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said the patients were quickly isolated and health officials investigated everyone who could have been exposed to them, The New York Times reported. Chinese health officials also called the risk for further infections "extremely low." https://ift.tt/32MN8l4

Fleas transmit plague — but the pneumonic plague, the type reported from China this week, can spread from person to person as well. Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images Fleas transmit plague — but the pneumonic plague, the type reported from China this week, can spread from person to person as well. Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images Two patients have been diagnosed in Beijing with the most dangerous form of the plague – the medieval disease also known as the Black Death. The announcement sent shock waves rippling through China's northeastern capital as authorities attempted to tamp down fears of an epidemic by censoring Chinese-language news of the hospitalization. On Tuesday, Beijing authorities announced a municipal hospital had taken in a married couple from Inner Mongolia, a sparsely populated autonomous region in northwest China, seeking treatm...

In 1900, newspapers and politicians claimed the doctor trying to stop the plague had made the whole thing up. At the turn of the 20th century, the world was gripped by a plague pandemic that had spread from China to port cities around the globe. So when a 41-year-old San Franciscan named Wong Chut King died of a particularly violent disease in March 1900, there were worries that the pandemic had finally reached U.S. soil. After examining samples from King’s autopsy, the head of the city’s Marine Hospital Service confirmed those fears: the plague had come to America. And unfortunately, it never left. King’s death marked the beginning of the United States’ first plague epidemic, which infected at least 280 people and killed at least 172 over the next eight years (the actual numbers of cases and deaths may be higher). The disease was likely introduced by rat–infested steamships arriving at California’s shores from affected areas, mostly from Asia. But instead of alerting the publi...