Disease

Foot and Mouth Disease in Eastern Russia

Cases of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) involving several hundred cattle and sheep have been reported in two villages in the Amur region of eastern Russia.

Dealing with the outbreaks has been made difficult by severe flooding in the area, according to the National Veterinary Authority.

Bubonic Plague in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan’s health officials are on alert after a local teenager died of bubonic plague caught from eating barbecued marmot, the apparent vector for the deadly disease.

A medical check confirmed a 15-year-old boy, who died last Thursday, died of bubonic plague, Kyrgyzstan’s Health Minister said Monday.

The teenager told doctors upon hospitalization that he got sick after eating marmot meat he ate while visiting relatives in the country’s south.

The 105 people Isakunov contacted since his ill-fated rodent meal have all been quarantined, although none have showed symptoms of the disease so far.

Kyrgyzstan’s sanitary services have launched a marmot extermination campaign in the country in response.

Bubonic plague – the disease behind the Black Death epidemic that ravaged Europe in the 14th century – is transmitted by fleas living on small rodents. Humans can catch the disease through flea bites or close contact with infected rodents, such as dressing or consuming their meat. It is transmitted between people via coughs or sneezes once they are infected.

Though no major epidemics of bubonic plague have taken place since the early 20th century, small-scale outbreaks of the disease – which can be treated by antibiotics – continue to occur across the world, particularly in Asia. Mountainous Kyrgyzstan last saw a death from a bubonic plague in 1981, though no epidemic followed.