The 37-year-old man died yesterday in Ziketan in Qinghai province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. He was a neighbor of a 32-year-old herdsman, the first person in the town to die from the disease, according to the report. Ten other people, mostly relatives of the initial patient, have been quarantined and aren't showing symptoms, the report said.
The World Health Organization is monitoring the town because of the potential for human-to-human spread of one of the most deadly infectious diseases. Pneumonic plague is the most serious of three forms of plague and occurs when so-called Yersinia pestis bacteria infect the lungs and cause pneumonia. MUCH MORE
Correction and Update # 2: According to the BBC, China has been monitoring this area for outbreaks of Pneumonic plague:
Outbreak anticipated
Health officials in Qinghai have been concerned about pneumonic plague for some time.
In February, they said they had sent out 55 teams across the province to help monitor and control the disease.
One Chinese media report said this was the third outbreak of the disease in Qinghai within the last 10 years. Excerpt from BBC News
Why have pneumonic plague outbreaks been an area of concern in this area? As the BBC article substantiates, this is a sparsely populated area which is largely populated by Tibetans. As I stated earlier, China has no love for their Tibetan population, and such a sparsely populated area would be an excellent area to run clandestine Bio labs. Furthermore, China may have expected these outbreaks due to several earthquakes that have hit the province, which could have inadvertently released this pathogen into the surrounding area:
6.3 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks China's Qinghai Province
Beijing (ABC live): A strong earthquake measuring 6.3 in rector Scale was occurred in Qinghai Province in the north-western region of China again.
Beijing (ABC live): A strong earthquake measuring 6.3 in rector Scale was occurred in Qinghai Province in the north-western region of China again.
According to information casualties have been reported so far from area and Coal mines in the region have been evacuated as a precautionary measure.
The epicentre of this tremor was in the Mongolian-Tibetan Autonomous region which is about 716 kilometers west of the provincial capital Xining. MUCH MORE
