China will intensify preventive measures against rat plague,
which can be contracted and spread by human beings, the health
minister said.
Chen Zhu, the Minister of Health, said the
plague should be treated as a major public health emergency and
health departments at all levels should try their best to prevent
it.
Infectious diseases in China are classified into three
categories under the Law on the Prevention and Treatment of
Infectious Diseases, and plague belongs to the most dangerous
A-Class, together with cholera.
Chen said plague prevention along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway
should also be intensified. Qinghai is a province that has
experienced deaths from plague over the past five years.
Experts say that plague, usually carried by marmots in Qinghai
and Tibet, could be carried further afield by the Qinghai-Tibet
Railway.
"Relevant departments should cooperate to intensify plague
prevention and control work," Chen said, adding that
animal-to-animal transmission should be stamped out to protect
humans.
Plague is a fatal bacterial disease transmitted by fleas from
infected rats and by contact with infected blood or tissue. The
most common form, the bubonic plague, causes high fever, delirium
and swollen lymph nodes.
China has only reported a single case of bubonic plague through
October this year. It occurred in northwest Gansu Province in
September.
(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2007)