China has just registered a case of bubonic plague, a disease that seems to come straight out of another time. An entire village has been closed to prevent the epidemic from spreading.
It is a scenario worthy of the novel Plague, by Albert Camus. Since July 20, 30,000 people have been holed up in their village of Yumen, in northern China. They are prohibited from leaving until further notice. And for good reason: a thirty-eight-year-old man died after contracting a particularly virulent form of bubonic plague, better known as the black plague. 151 villagers were also quarantined after having had direct or distant contact with the victim.
Because of a groundhog
Bubonic plague is often considered an epidemic of the past. Much progress has been made in many parts of the world through the use of antibiotics and preventive measures. However, the Black Death is still raging, particularly in Africa, where Madagascar is the main focus, and in America. The World Health Organization has identified 40,000 cases over the past fifteen years, in 25 countries. The last French case dates from 1945 in Corsica.
Carried by rodents, the plague is transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. In the case of the recent death in Yumen, the victim allegedly cut up a corpse of a groundhog, which carries the plague bacteria (Yersina Pestis), to feed it to his dog. This is how he could have been stung.
In search of a vaccine
Plague is characterized by a very serious infectious syndrome, that is, a high fever, as well as the appearance of a bubo, an enlarged lymph node. Left untreated, the disease progresses to generalized, and often fatal, sepsis. Antibiotics are often a cure, but researchers at Pasteur Center would like to develop a vaccine capable of protecting the organism from infection. Due to lack of funding, it remains for the moment at the stage of the hypothesis.
This new case of the black plague in China could allow a new awareness, especially as the disease reappears in a worrying way in some countries where it had disappeared for 80 years. Moreover, the development of new cases in Europe cannot be ruled out, according to researchers from the Pasteur Center.
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