Man in Mongolia catches bubonic plague after eating wild rabbit

The man, who was not named, caught and ate the rabbit on November 5 and appeared unaffected for more than a week. Photo / Getty Images

China says a 55-year-old man has been diagnosed with bubonic plague after killing and eating a wild rabbit, adding to two plague cases already discovered in the capital Beijing.

A statement from the health authority in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region north of Beijing said as of Saturday the man was being treated at a hospital in the city of Huade.

The man, who was not named, caught and ate the rabbit on November 5 and appeared unaffected for more than a week. However, on Saturday he fell ill with a fever and went to the hospital for help, the statement said.

The statement said 28 people who had close contact with the man were quarantined but none has run a fever or shown other plague symptoms.

On November 12, two patients also from Xilingol League were diagnosed with pneumonic plague in Beijing.

However, the statement said the case was not linked to the two people from remote villages in Inner Mongolia who were diagnosed with pneumonic plague earlier in the month and are being treated in Beijing.

The Beijing Health Commission said on Saturday that one of the patients was now in a stable condition, while the second was in a more serious state despite having earlier shown signs of recovery.

Several of the people with whom they had been in close contact and had been quarantined had since been released from hospital after showing no signs of the disease, the authority said.

Although plague has been mostly eradicated in China, cases are occasionally reported in northern parts of the country. According to official yearbooks there have been six fatalities from the disease in the past five years.

Plague, which comes in three strains - bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic, is categorised as the most serious contagious disease in China due to its high infection and mortality rates.

- AP, SCMP