BEIJING — Officials have sealed off an isolated town of 10,000 people in rural west-central China after an outbreak of pneumonic plague killed two residents, the state-run Xinhua news service reported on Monday.
An official who answered the emergency line at Renmin Hospital in Ziketan, where the outbreak is centered, said that all roads into and out of the area had been closed off, but that residents remained free to move about within the town. The official, who refused to give his name, said it was unclear when the blockade would be lifted. Repeated calls to a plague emergency phone line produced only busy signals.
Ziketan is a remote, ethnically Tibetan town in eastern Qinghai Province, one of the largest and least populated regions of China. Officials said the first victim, a 32-year-old herdsman, died last Thursday, and the second, a neighbor who also was a herdsman, died on Sunday, more than a day after being admitted to a hospital.
Please read the full article at Chinese Town Sealed Off After Plague Deaths – NYTimes.com.
