Two individuals, a married couple in China, have been diagnosed with “pneumonic plague,” according to international reports — a strain of the plague “more infectious than the strain that ravaged Europe in the Dark Ages.”
According to Chinese state-run media, per Canada’s National Post, “doctors in Beijing confirmed that the patients, from China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, were infected with pneumonic plague.” The two individuals who contracted the disease are receiving treatment at Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing.
The pair contracted the disease near their home in Inner Mongolia, making them the second such couple to have contracted the plague in that general region since May, when a Mongolian couple died from eating raw organ meat from an infected marmot, CNN reports. The husband contracted the disease first and was nursed by the wife until she also fell ill.
“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 lungs,” CNN continues. “Pneumonic — the kind the Chinese patients have — is more virulent and damaging. Left untreated, it is always fatal, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).” – READ MORE