After Plague Death, China Reopens Town

A town in China sealed off after a man died of plague, re-opened after authorities found no further cases of the illness, state media said.

Authorities barred 30,000 people living in Yumen in the northwestern province of Gansu from leaving, while road blocks prevented others from entering, after a 38-year-old died from plague last week.

Researchers Discover Disease That may Have Plagued 700-year-old Skeleton
A genome of the bacteria Brucella melitensis has now been recovered from a 700 year-old skeleton in the ruins of an Italian village

"We have not discovered any new plague cases," the state-run China News service cited Gansu's health bureau as saying.

It added that authorities had exterminated rodents and fleas in designated quarantine zones, while 151 close contacts of the man had been kept in isolation for nine days without showing symptoms.

Reports said that earlier this month the victim had fed his dog with a dead marmot, a small furry animal similar to a squirrel, and developed a fever the same day.

Plague Alters Cell Death to Kill Host: Research
Northwestern Medicine scientists are unraveling the molecular changes that underlie one of the world's deadliest and most infamous respiratory infections.

Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection best known for the "Black Death", a virulent epidemic of the disease that killed tens of millions of people in 14th century Europe.

A more recent pandemic, the Modern Plague, began in China in the 1860s and reached Hong Kong by 1894, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says on its website.

Worries About Future Plague Speed Skating World
A rising number of countries have been losing interest in speed skating leading to worries about the future of the sport for the International Skating Union (ISU).

If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be successfully treated with antibiotics, according to the World Health Organization, but in its pneumonic form it can be passed from person to person and is "one of the most deadly infectious diseases".

Cases occasionally emerge in China. A villager who found a dead marmot and ate it with other residents of Litang in Sichuan province, in the southwest, died of plague in September 2012, a newspaper run by the health ministry reported.

DNA from the Ancient, Terrifying Plague may Lend Clues About Future Risks
Procopius penned down the events that occurred as a terrifying disease spread through Constantinople in 542 AD and described In some cases death came immediately; in others, after many days.

Source-AFP