Chuanguan news reporter Wang Daiqiang
The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Health Commission reported on the 22nd that on August 21, the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University confirmed a case of plague (bubonic plague), and the patient's condition was critical. The autonomous regional government decided to launch a four-level emergency response to the prevention and control of the plague epidemic from 1 o'clock on the 22nd. As soon as the news came out, it was connected to the hot search.
Screenshot of the official website of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Health Commission
"The northwestern Sichuan plateau is severely infested with rats, and there have also been plagues." Upon learning of the above news, experts such as Zhou Guo, vice president of the Sichuan Academy of Forestry Sciences, reminded: Tourists who play in the northwestern Plateau of Sichuan such as Ganzi and Aba should not follow the example of netizens feeding the "Meng Mengda" Himalayan marmot (commonly known as "groundhog"), in case of infection with plague, it cannot be crossed!
How terrible is the plague?
The incidence of disease is rapid, the mortality rate is high, and it ranks first among infectious diseases
Plague, once known internationally as the "Black Death", is a fierce infectious disease caused by the infection of Y. pestis, and is also a Class A infectious disease in China's statutory infectious diseases, ranking first among the 39 statutory infectious diseases.
As a naturally occurring infectious disease (epidemic infectious phenomenon that can be caused by vector infection of the host even without the participation of humans or domestic animals), plague is mainly endemic among rodents. Clinical manifestations are high fever, lymphadenopathy and pain, cough, sputum production, dyspnea, bleeding, and other severe symptoms of poisonous blood.
According to the clinical manifestations and pathogenesis characteristics, plague is divided into mild plague, bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, sepsis type plague and other types. Different types have different incubation periods, such as bubonic plague 2 to 8 days, while pneumonic plague can be as short as a few hours to 2 to 3 days.
Clinically, bubonic plague is the most common type of plague, accounting for more than 80% of plague cases. Bubonic plague is mostly seen in the early stage of the epidemic, the onset is abrupt, starting with significant symptoms of poisonous blood, manifested by sudden chills, chills, followed by high fever, body temperature rapidly rises to 39 to 40 ° C, while there is obvious dizziness and headache, body and limb aches, facial flushing, conjugate hyperemia, sometimes nausea and vomiting.
Liu Shaoying, a researcher at the Sichuan Academy of Forestry Sciences (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
Most infected people will experience extreme failure, such as rapid pulse and breathing, decreased blood pressure, sluggishness, sometimes ecchymosis on the skin and mucous membranes, and may have nosebleeds, blood in the urine and blood in the stool. Most notably, lymphadenopathy is particularly rapid, with significant changes every day or even every hour.
Bubonic plague and other types of plague are listed as the first notifiable infectious diseases because of its rapid morbidity and high mortality. Statistics show that the development of modern infectious disease research and the progress of epidemic prevention technology have controlled the mortality rate of plague at about 10%. Even so, this mortality rate is not low among infectious diseases. Once a human is infected with bubonic plague, if left untreated, it will generally die within a week or so.
How is plague transmitted?
Transmission is mainly through vector organisms, contact and droplets
At present, there are 11 plague foci in China, most of which are distributed in the northwest and southwest, especially in Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang and other regions.
In the natural source of the epidemic, vector biological transmission is the most important mode of transmission, fleas are the main vector for the transmission of plague, parasitizing the fleas of infected animals infected with plague bacteria and then bite people, which can cause human infection. Contact transmission refers to the infection caused by the bacteria entering the body through wounds or mucous membranes on the surface of the skin when people come into contact with infected animals during slaughter, peeling and eating meat, or when they come into contact with excreta or secretions of plague patients.
In addition, the respiratory secretions of pneumonic plague patients contain a large number of plague bacteria, and the bacteria released by the patient when breathing and coughing can form droplets and suspend them in the air for a short time, and when others inhale, they can also cause infection.
"Plague has long been present in wild animals, especially rodents." Chen Anguo, a researcher at the Institute of Subtropical Agroecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that there are 186 species of rodents that can infect and transmit plague in the world, and there are more than 40 kinds in China, such as marmots on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, weasels on the Songliao Plain, giant gerbils in the Jungar Basin, sand marmots in the Inner Mongolian Plateau and rats in Yunnan.
Domestic rats are susceptible to plague if they come into contact with wild rats, and parasitic fleas on house rats bite people to form human plague. Among them, yellow-breasted rats, brown rats and black rats are important sources of plague in humans.
"The plague hosts distributed in Sichuan (organisms that provide a living environment for parasites including parasites, viruses, etc.) are mainly Himalayan marmots and Qinghai voles." Liu Shaoying, a researcher at the Sichuan Academy of Forestry, introduced that the marmot is a marmot, don't look at it to look "cute", but it is a stable reservoir of plague bacteria, and the bacteria rate is high.
Zhou custom said that around the 1990s, plague occurred in Ganzi Shiqu and other places, and marmots made a great "contribution".
Expert Reminder:
Do not get close to groundhogs
However, the internet celebrity groundhog is in close contact with some people. With its round body and short limbs, the groundhog has become a "cute pet" for many tourists and anchors who play in the plateau grassland.
Some short videos show the phenomenon of feeding groundhogs with bare hands
Some netizens reported that a grassland scenic spot used marmots as a selling point to promote the marmots on their own turf that "round toots are not afraid of people". On short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin, many netizens in Sichuan have released short videos of feeding groundhogs, showing intimate behaviors such as feeding directly by hand and feeding water, and the food fed includes cabbage, steamed buns, cucumbers, cakes, biscuits, etc.
Many netizens left comments, thinking that groundhogs are very cute and calling for the love of nature and the protection of animals. Some netizens believe that by feeding groundhogs by hand, it is the embodiment of the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.
"Groundhogs mainly live in plateau meadows and other places." Liu Shaoying said that in zoology, marmots belong to the squirrel family, and they are close relatives with squirrels and are the focus of plague prevention. Groundhogs themselves carry parasitic fleas, and they carry plague in themselves and in their habitats. Whether in contact with their burrows, corpses or fur, they can be bitten by fleas. Eating its flesh, on the other hand, can directly infect with plague – in general, the plague bacteria in the blood of marmots are difficult to simply heat and kill.
Experts call for no contact with marmots or their burrows, let alone participation in feeding, feeding, or picking up or eating their bodies. Whether it is a scenic spot or an individual, they should not hype "contact marmots" regardless of danger.
The Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention has also issued a document pointing out that groundhogs are one of the main hosts of plague transmission, and the strains they carry are the most pathogenic and most likely to cause death among the strains found in our country. The center appeals: For the sake of everyone's health, please do not get close to marmots, let alone capture and breed or peel food, and do not become the protagonist of the next epidemic.
How can plague be prevented?
Do a good job of preventing flea bites and develop good hygiene habits
"The plague is relatively well controlled in our country, especially in the plains and urban areas, because it is not the natural source of the plague, there is no need to 'talk about rat discoloration'." Chen Anguo said that the focus of plague is on prevention, and it is necessary to do a good job in preventing flea bites and not hunting and eating wild animals without permission.
How can it be prevented? Experts give these suggestions:
1. Avoid travel or activities to endemic areas, and avoid contact with rodents (such as rodents and marmots);
2. Avoid close contact with patients suffering from plague, and when in contact with patients who may be infected with pneumonic plague, try to maintain a contact distance of more than 1 meter from the patient, and wear a mask and wash your hands frequently;
3. Take the necessary anti-flea bite measures, use insect repellent preparations, and commonly used insect repellents can generally drive away fleas;
4. If you have been to the epidemic area, you should continue to measure your body temperature for 2 weeks, if you suddenly have any symptoms such as fever, chills, lymph node pain, cough, coughing up blood or bleeding, you should immediately seek medical treatment and inform the doctor of the travel history of the epidemic area, and the early antibiotic treatment effect is better.
5. Personnel who are in close contact with patients suffering from plague should take preventive drugs as soon as possible. Sulfonamide preparations can be taken, adults for the first time 2g, thereafter 4-6 hours after 1g, generally for 5 days.
(Part of the content of this article is a synthesis of Shangguan News and Red Star News)