Bubonic Plague Kills One in China

Bubonic plague has killed one person and made another sick in China, the Health Ministry said, appealing for efforts nationwide to prevent further outbreaks.

Bubonic plague has killed one person and made another sick in China, the Health Ministry said, appealing for efforts nationwide to prevent further outbreaks.The cases were found earlier this year in China’s impoverished west — one in Gansu province’s Sunan county and another in Qinghai province’s Qilian county, the ministry said on its Web site, www.moh.gov.cn.It did not say specifically when the cases were detected but the outbreak had been brought under control, the Beijing News quoted health officials as saying.The bubonic plague bacterium, carried by rats and fleas, is commonly thought to have been the cause of the Black Death that decimated the population of Europe in the 14th century.It has been largely eradicated worldwide, but surfaces from time to time. Dozens of cases were reported in China in the 1990s. (Source: Reuters, September 2004)