Following the breakout of pneumonic plague in China’s Qinghai Province, nine people from Yichun City in Heilongjiang Province were hospitalized, suspected to be affected with the same disease.
Mr. Li, a relative of one of the patients, said that his cousin and several other villagers had symptoms such as burning fever, vomiting, and loss of appetite since last week. They went to the local hospital but doctors there were unable to determine what was causing their problems.
Later, the symptoms worsened and the group was transferred to Yichun City Hospital for further examination. After blood analysis, doctors determine that they were victims of pneumonic plague and were transferred to an isolation ward for further treatment.
“The first three people with the disease including my cousin, all had a persistently high temperature for close to 10 days,” Li explained. “The hospital determined that they had drunk water from the nearby mountain, which is infested with rodents, and diagnosed the group with having pneumonic plague.”
Li said that a few more villagers with similar symptoms were also sent to the hospital later on. A panic quickly spread among villagers.
According to Li, local authorities tried to pacify villagers claiming that the patients were not affected with pneumonic plague. However, a large number of medical workers were deployed to disinfect the village and spread rat poison over the area. Li suspects that local officials are intentionally hiding the truth as their story conflicts with those of the hospital.
Dr. Zhang, a physician on duty at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Yichun City Hospital, confessed that nine patients from the village are in the hospital and receiving treatment. He said that they were currently in stable condition, but he refused to reveal that the patients had pneumonic plague.
“They are not affected with pneumonic plague at all,” said Dr. Zhang. “They were affected with epidemic hemorrhagic fever virus, which is also spread from rodents. There are many different kinds of viruses that rodents carry. If people drink polluted food or water, they will be affected, but this is absolutely not pneumonic plague.”
When informed that the hospital had told relatives of patients that they were affected with pneumonic plague and isolated for treatment, Dr. Zhang said that he had not heard of anyone spreading such information. He refused to comment whether the hospital reported the situation to the authorities.
The Yichun City hall and the Municipal Bureau of Public Health could not be reached.
