DOH allays fear on China’s bubonic plague

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) assured the public yesterday that the death of a person from bubonic plague in China last week is no cause for alarm in the Philippines.

DOH spokesman Lyndon Lee Suy said China had started implementing precautionary measures to contain the disease.

“There is no reason to be alarmed,” he said.

“I think the affected had already been sealed off. Secondly, the progression of the disease is fast so the infected persons could no longer travel.”

He is confident that the containment measures being implemented in China would prevent the disease from spreading.

Lee Suy could not ascertain if the Philippines had already experienced the disease.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) will coordinate with the Bureau of Quarantine (BQ) to determine whether to impose regulations on travelers following the reported death from bubonic plague in the city of Yumen.

BI spokesman Elaine Tan said they will coordinate with other government agencies to ensure that bubonic plague would not spread to the country as they do not have the necessary equipment to check if a traveler is infected with the disease.

“We will coordinate with the Bureau of Quarantine and ask if they have any advice or suggestion on how to deal with travelers from other countries, she said.

The Chinese government has reportedly placed parts of Yumen in northwestern China under quarantine after a 38-year-old man reportedly died after getting in contact with a dead rodent.

The Xinhua news agency said health officials and specialists have already been sent to Yumen to contain the bubonic plague.

The bacterium Yersinia pestis transmitted “usually through the bite of infected rodent fleas”  causes bubonic plague, according to the website of the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

“Less common exposures include handling infected animal tissues (hunters, wildlife personnel), inhalation of infectious droplets from cats or dogs with plague, and rarely, contact with a pneumonic plague patient,” read the website.

Bubonic plague is endemic in rural areas in central and southern Africa, central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, parts of the southwestern United States and the  northeastern part of South America.

Its incubation period is usually one to six days and the symptoms are the “rapid onset of fever, painful, swollen and tender lymph nodes, usually inguinal, axillary or cervical.”

– With Evelyn Macairan