Chinese town in quarantine after plague outbreak claims two lives

CHINA has sealed off a remote farming town after two people died and ten others fell ill with pneumonic plague, a lung infection that can kill in 24 hours if left untreated.

People in Ziketan, in north-western Qinghai province, have told the media by telephone how the streets are largely deserted and most shops shut.

Pneumonic plague is caused by the same bacteria that occurs in bubonic plague, or the Black Death, which killed some 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Since the outbreak was reported on Saturday, authorities have been urging anyone who has visited the town of 10,000 people since mid-July, and has since developed a cough or fever, to seek hospital treatment.

On Sunday, a 37-year-old man became the second fatality from the outbreak. He lived next door to the first, a 32-year-old herder.

Police have set up checkpoints around quarantine centres, and the ten ill people, many of them relatives of the herder, are undergoing treatment in hospital isolation units.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is in close contact with Chinese health authorities and has said it is satisfied with the measures taken so far. "This form of pneumonic plague is probably the least common but the most severe," said Vivian Tan, the WHO's spokeswoman in China. "It has a very high fatality rate and generally spreads quite easily. So we're certainly concerned about the situation."

In Ziketan, the authorities have said all homes and shops should be disinfected.

A food seller who runs a stall at a local market said residents had been advised to wear masks when they went out. He added that about 80 per cent of shops were closed yesterday, with the price of disinfectant and some vegetables having tripled.

"People are so scared. There are few people on the streets," he said by telephone.

Another resident described how police checkpoints had been set up in a 17-mile radius around Ziketan, with residents not allowed to leave.

However, the local disease control centre insisted the situation was stable. An official said the measures taken were "scientific, orderly, effective and in accordance with the law".

According to the WHO, pneumonic plague is one of the deadliest infectious diseases, capable of killing humans within 24 hours of infection. It is spread through the air and can be passed from person to person through coughing, whereas bubonic plague is usually transmitted by flea bite.

Officials refused to give further details about the situation or say how the herder had first been infected. However, experts have previously said most cases of the plague in China's north-west occur when hunters are contaminated while skinning infected animals.

In 2004, eight villagers in Qinghai died of plague, most of them after killing or eating wild marmots.