160 Quarantined After Kyrgyzstan Bubonic Plague Death

Four people have been hospitalized and 160 quarantined after a 15-year-old boy who ate marmot meat died of the bubonic plague last week, the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health said Wednesday according to ABC News.

The Inquisitr reported earlier on the boy’s death which was due to the bubonic plague, also known as the black plague.

Confusion followed Isakunov’s illness and death, as the source of the infection isn’t quite clear.

Some agencies reported the Kyrgyzstan bubonic plague death was caused by a bite from a flea, while others blamed a barbecued marmot the teen ate while visiting with relatives.

Another health minister tried to ease the Kyrgyzstan bubonic plague fears. Dinara Saginbayeva said that the disease is unlikely to spread, and that a larger scale quarantine is not warranted at this time:

“There will not be a bubonic plague epidemic… The form of the disease in the teenager is not conducive to a plague epidemic. So there are no grounds for closing the borders.”

The Province stated that the Ministry of Health established a quarantine in parts of the mountainous northeast, but said there was still no risk of an epidemic.

The report continued on to say that four residents in the boy’s village have been hospitalized on Wednesday after complaining of a fever, but all of them say they had no contact with the 15-year-old.

“There are several thousand cases of bubonic plague every year worldwide. People usually catch the disease after being bitten by an infected insect or animal or coming into close contact with an infected animal, like hunters removing an animal’s skin.”

The Independent states that the bubonic plague can now be treated with antibiotics, with mortality rates reduced to between one percent and 15 percent in treated cases.

The report went on to say that the speed of care does remain vital, with antibiotic treatment required within 12 to 24-hours of the first symptoms in order to prevent the mortality rate rising to between 40 percent and 60 percent.

Worry has started to spread in the Kyrgyzstan bubonic plague story, but officials are still urging everyone to keep calm because they believe there is no threat of an epidemic.

[Image via Medical News Today]