Three people have been revealed in Kyrgyzstan as showing possible symptoms of bubonic plague following the death of a 15-year-old boy from the disease last week.
The easternmost district of Ak-Suu in the Central Asian country is on lockdown while police guard the hospital where 15-year-old Temirbek Isakunov was treated and died last Thursday.
The former Soviet republic’s emergency ministry said in a statement: “[Three] residents of Sary-Kamysh… came to the hospital at 12:30 am. They are now under medical care.”
The three new patients, a woman with a toddler and a teenager, exhibited symptoms of bubonic plague, namely a fever and swollen lymph nodes in their armpit and neck areas, an informed Kyrgyzstan government source said on condition of anonymity. According to the source, all three had contact with the deceased 15-year-old.
The Ak-Suu district, which borders Kazakhstan and China, lies close to the Issyk-Kul lake and is a popular tourist destination. Kazakhstani officials said on Tuesday that the country is stepping up preventive measures to stop any possible outbreak on its territory, introducing “special monitoring” of people crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan.
Kazakhstan’s health ministry also warned its citizens against travelling to Kyrgyzstan “until the epidemiological situation regarding the plague is stabilised”.
Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection that is a strain of the “Black Death”, a virulent disease that killed tens of millions of people in 14th-century Europe. Primarily an animal disease, it is extremely rare in humans.
