two people in Henan Tibetan Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province, died of the , and another 10 have been confirmed infected. Chinese authorities learned of the outbreak on Friday, July 30th. In response, 10,000 people in Ziketan Town, believed to be the plague’s source. Most of those infected are close friends or relatives of a 32 year old herdsman who was the first to die of the plague. The second death was his close friend. I have produced a map illustrating Ziketan’s location for any worried readers (or worried parents of asia health care bloggers) living in China or who have friends/family here.
Pneumonic plague is the second rarest and second most contagious variant of plague. Proper treatment requires that antibiotics be given within 24 hours of transmission of the disease. Without treatment the mortality rate for this disease approaches 100%. It is good to see that this threat has been treated very seriously by Chinese public health authorities. (Health authorities all over the world, if they have not already, would be wise to take note – .)
There are signs that the authorities - through no fault of their own – but due to the severity and the quickness of the disease are having a hard time saving some of the sickened victims. There is a discrepancy in two reports issued within twenty minutes of each other this morning. that
The 11 infected, who have been hospitalized in quarantined wards, are in stable condition.
am this morning that a second person, a neighbor of the 32 year old herdsmen, had died.
Danzin, 37, in Ziketan town, Xinghai county of Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture died Sunday morning. He is a neighbor of ,
If one was to read the reports verbatim, it would appear as if Danzin, 37, had come back to life and returned to stable condition 25 minutes after he was reported dead!
Whatever the case, the lesson from this is that ‘stable condition’ can mean anything. In this instance, however, I just think its an interesting minor gaffe amidst an otherwise swift Chinese public health response that appears to have effectively stemmed the further spread of the plague. But, based on what we know about the nasty nature of the pneumonic plague, it should suprise no one if a few more of those ‘stable’ patients die within the next 24 hours.
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I think it’s just the information delay by Chinadaily, I read the morning news in Chinese which published at 1:56, August 3, which said that by 20:00 August 2nd, the deathtoll is already 2.
There are several pneumonic plague happened in Qinghai in the past decade, the rest two are in 2001 and 2004, both are taken under control, the government there is fairly experienced, thus no need to panic~
You are absolutely right, and I read the same article. I just think that these sort of information delays sometimes paint an interesting picture of PR responses to public health issues – this is true all over the world, by the way, not just in China.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Damjan DeNoble, Damjan DeNoble. Damjan DeNoble said: @rightjustified this plague outbreak is old and has been squashed, not much to worr about. check this link for info- [...]