Detonator Posted August 27, 2013 Posted August 27, 2013 Health officials on alert after teenager who ate infected barbecued marmot dies and three others are admitted to hospital Temirbek Isakunov reportedly died from bubonic plague after eating an infected barbecued marmot. Photograph: Xinhua /Landov / Barcroft Media Health officials fear an outbreak of bubonic plague in central Asia after a teenage boy died from the disease and three more were admitted to hospital in Kyrgyzstan. Temirbek Isakunov, a 15-year-old from a mountain village near the border with Kazakhstan, reportedly died from the disease last week after eating an infected barbecued marmot. Kyrgyzstan's emergency ministry said a young woman and two children from a different village who came into contact with Isakunov were hospitalised on Tuesday with the high fever and swelling around the neck and armpits characteristic of bubonic plague, local news outlets reported. A total of 131 people, including 33 medical personnel, have been quarantined, although none of them have yet exhibited symptoms of the disease, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in Kyrgyzstan reported. The health ministry continues to find and quarantine people who came into contact with the teenager, according to its director. Kazakhstan has stepped up its border control with Kyrgyzstan and is operating quarantine points in light of the possible outbreak, the news agency Tengrinews reported. The Kazakh health ministry is searching out people who might have come into contact with the dead teenager, and is also determining where animal carriers of the disease might be moving between the two countries, according to a ministry official. The bacteria that cause bubonic plague are typically transmitted from rodents to humans via flea bites but can also be contracted through direct contact with infected tissue. Some local authorities in Russia have also grown wary over the incident, since citizens of Kyrgyzstan do not need a visa to enter the country and, according to the newspaper Izvestiya, more than 500,000 Kyrgyz work in Russia. According to TV news report in Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city, checkpoints in the airport there are inspecting all those arriving from countries with a high bubonic plague risk. A Russian public health official said cases of bubonic plague were registered in Kazakhstan every year, and the disease existed naturally in parts of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia, Izvestiya reported. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/27/bubonic-plague-outbreak-feared-central-asia Teenager dies of bubonic plague after eating infected barbecued meat 27 Aug 2013 12:55 The 15-year-old is thought to have caught the Black Death from a flea bite or eating infected marmot meat Yersinia Pestis: bacterium responsible for the plague Getty A teenage boy has died of the bubonic plague in Kyrgyzstan, sparking fears of an epidemic. The 15-year-old boy is reported to have caught the disease known as the Black Death after either being bitten by an infected flea, or eating barbecued meat from an infected marmot. It is the first case of the plague Kyrgyzstan has seen for 30 years, and has led to more than 100 people being put into quarantine. The teen, named as Temir Issakunov, is said to have fallen ill after eating a meal with his family in a north eastern mountain village near to the border with Kazakhstan. Doctors say he died in hospital last week, but it has taken until now for his cause of death to be diagnosed. His body has been cremated and his remains buried with special precautions. Health ministry official Tolo Isakov said a team has now been sent to the boy’s village to get rid of rodents which could be carrying the plague, and more than 2,000 people in the region are being tested for the potentially deadly disease. He added: “We suspect that the patient was infected with the plague through the bite of a flea.†Antibiotics are also being handed out and the transport of livestock has been restricted, but officials tried to calm fears of an epidemic saying it was “unlikelyâ€. The bubonic plague killed millions across Europe during the Middle Ages, but is now very rare in humans and usually only found in animals. The last major outbreak was in Peru in 2010, when 12 people were infected. World Health Organisation epidemic disease expert Eric Bertherat told the BBC there were about 400 cases of bubonic plague reported in 2012. He said Africa accounted for more than 90% of cases worldwide - especially Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr Bertherat said that bubonic plague in Central Asia is usually transmitted by fleas attached to small wild mammals - which means that only those who live in rural areas and work outside for long hours are in danger of being affected. “Because bubonic plague is such a rare event, local medical staff are not prepared to diagnose the disease and treat it appropriately, he said, “which means the first patient usually dies without even a diagnostic. “If secondary cases occur, medical staff are aware and better able to treat patients with antibiotics.†http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/teenager-dies-bubonic-plague-kyrgyzstan-2227691 Black Death is the single most deadliest pandemic in the history.
kubrickian Posted August 27, 2013 Posted August 27, 2013 Black Death is the single most deadliest pandemic in the history. It killed 1/3rd of human population in 14th century.
diga Posted August 27, 2013 Posted August 27, 2013 An old article from Week asking if the Surat Plague was actually an experiment gone wrong? An epidemic that claimed the lives of 52 people and made seven lakh people flee their homes—the plague that broke out in Surat and Beed in 1994—was covered by THE WEEK through a different lens.Did India unwittingly become the field for testing germs for biological warfare germs, which were newly developed in the US? This was the crux of the report Germ War October 9, 1994. The cover story by R. Prasannan revealed the extensive research conducted by the Americans and the Russians on developing warfare germs. Though ecological aftershocks of earthquakes and floods were cited as reasons for the outbreak of plague in India, there were ample reasons to suspect that the plague was due to biological warfare experiments. Since the mid 1980s, the US had been developing various strains of plague and other bacteria, some of them resistant to antibiotics. And that the US and Russian military labs, too, were involved in the project was an open secret. Soon after the plague outbreak in Surat, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US offered to send a team of epidemiologists and lab technicians to diagnose and control the epidemic. The Indian government, however, rejected the offer for there was growing suspicion whether the epidemic was a natural outbreak. A month before the outbreak, some foreigners carrying fossilised organisms were arrested in India. Experts had reasoned the rat-fall that usually precedes a natural plague had not been reported from Surat or Beed, Maharashtra, where the epidemic struck first. In Surat, the epidemic killed 50 persons. India was quarantined by the rest of the world: flights were cancelled, ships turned back, and exports spurned. Rumours made Surat tense. There were rumours that Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence had poisoned the city's water supply. Seven lakh people, one-third of Surat's population, left the city. Government offices were deserted, though the government had invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act. Factories and shops closed down. And there was shortage of medicines. Roads and markets were overrun with filth and scavenging pigs. The biggest casualty was the thriving diamond trade in the city. Surat accounting for 60 per cent of India's diamond trade, lost Rs 50 lakh a day. The overall business loss was pegged at Rs 200 crore a day. NOW THE WEEK followed up the story with another 'Military Microbe' (July 23, 1995) describing how scientists' initial suspicions about the germ having been manipulated were confirmed. An additional protein ring was found by a French laboratory in the micro-organism, which could not have happened naturally, and for which no explanation has been found to date. As THE WEEK reported, the outbreak was contained within a fortnight, unlike in the case of natural plague which lasts at least a full season. This further confirmed the suspicion, about the germ having been manipulated, since military microbes are 'designed' in such a way that they last in a virulent form for a short while, and then are destroyed during dissemination. The idea behind such designing in actual warfare is to keep the place safe for occupation by one's own troops. No outbreak has been reported in India since then. Surat bounced back, and the city's clean-up drive was hailed as the best model for urban renewal. That was not the last one heard of germ warfare. Post 9/11, there were reports of anthrax powder having been manufactured by al Qaeda elements for targeting individuals and institutions in the US, though there was no evidence of extensive use. .
CSK Fan Posted August 27, 2013 Posted August 27, 2013 ^^^^^^^:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: We were so like Pakistan in the 90s, all these anti-capitalist conspiracy theories
Laaloo Posted August 27, 2013 Posted August 27, 2013 I was 5 years old in Surat when this happened. Don't recall anything :secret:
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