Mongolian Teenager Died From Plague, Regional Quarantine Commenced

Tarbagan guinea pigs (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - A 15-year-old man in Western Mongolia died from the bubonic plague. Mongolian Health Ministry spokesman Dorj Narangerel said the man died after eating the guinea pig he had hunted.

Launching CNN, Thursday, July 16, the teenager was found to have contracted bubonic plague after being tested. With this case, Tugrug District, Gobi-Altai Province was quarantined for one week or 12 July to 18 July. In addition, there are 15 people who have been isolated because they had contact with the teenager.

The marmot is a large ground squirrel, a type of rodent historically associated with bubonic plague in the region.

Rodents are the main vectors of animal-to-human transmission of the bubonic plague, but the disease can also be transmitted by tick bites or from person to person.

As a result of this plague has killed about 50 million people in Europe in the Black Death pandemic in the Middle Ages. It is known that modern antibiotics can prevent complications and death if they are given quickly enough.

Bubonic plague causes swollen lymph nodes accompanied by fever, chills and cough. Mongolia has recorded 692 cases of marmot-induced bubonic plague from 1928 to 2018. Of these, 513 people died from the disease, the equivalent of a mortality rate of over 74%.

Earlier this month, two other people tested positive for bubonic plague in Khovd province, prompting warnings from nearby Russian officials. Officials from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and Food told residents in border areas not to hunt guinea pigs or eat their meat. They are also asked to take precautions against insect bites.

The Russian Embassy in Mongolia quoted Sergei Diorditsu, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Mongolia, as saying the province is seeing a seasonal bubonic plague. Authorities in the Inner Mongolia region also confirmed a case of the bubonic plague in the city of Bayannur, which is located northwest of Beijing.

"There is a natural outbreak focus in Mongolia and this disease is spread by tarbagan (Mongolian marmots)," said the Russian Embassy in Mongolia.

"The problem is that the local people, despite all restrictions and recommendations from the local government, continue to hunt guinea pigs and eat them, because it is a local delicacy."

In 2019, a husband and wife in Mongolia died after eating raw guinea pig kidneys, triggering a quarantine that left several tourists stranded in the region. Last week, a squirrel in the state of Colorado, United States (US), tested positive for the outbreak.

The US reports dozens of cases each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Two people died in Colorado from the bubonic plague in 2015. The outbreak recently returned, the WHO has categorized it as a re-emerging disease.