Bejing September 30 :<\/p>\n
A county in China has declared an emergency after a three-year-old boy was confirmed to be infected by bubonic plague.<\/p>\n
As per media reports, the three-year-old, from a remote village in Menghai county in Yunnan province in China, was confirmed to be infected by the disease on Sunday. Following this, the county instituted a Level-4 emergency response.<\/p>\n
The media report added that the case is mild and that the boy was treated immediately.<\/p>\n
The case was initially suspected after three rats were found dead “for unknown reasons” in a village after which health authorities conducted a screening throughout the county.<\/p>\n
“Infected rats are a key source of the disease, which also transmits to humans through bites from infected fleas,” an official was quoted as saying by Global Times.<\/p>\n
He said the disease was unlikely to spread throughout Yunnan but that the public needs to be aware of the potential for infection among rats.<\/p>\n
In July, a level-three alarm was raised in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, 2,200 miles northeast of Menghai, after a herdsman was diagnosed with the disease.<\/p>\n
A 15-year-old boy had died in western Mongolia of bubonic plague after eating an infected marmot.<\/p>\n
Plague is found in marmots, large rodents that live in burrows in the sprawling North Asian grassland, and some other wild animals in parts of Mongolia, northwestern China and eastern Russia.<\/p>\n