A Mongolian couple have died after contracting the bubonic plague.
The ethnic Kazakh couple died on May 1 after eating raw marmot, AFP reported.
Following their deaths a six-day quarantine was declared in the region in Mongolia’s western Bayan Olgii province, bordering Russia and China, delaying a number of tourists from leaving.
Elena Kovena from Kemerovok, was temporarily marooned along with her husband, said: “Did you think that the plague was something from the Dark Ages? Us too!! We were just about to leave Ulgii to go deeper into Mongolia, but all exits from the town were shut and we were not allowed to leave. Half of the city is closed!”
The couple had eaten raw marmot meat and kidney, believed to be a folk remedy for good health, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO) told the BBC.
The Mongolian Ministry of Health told the Siberian Times the situation was not critical “or anywhere near epidemic.”
Plague, a bacterial disease, is mainly spread by rodents and fleas. Humans bitten by an infected flea usually develop a bubonic form, which swells the lymph node and can be treated with antibiotics. If the bacteria reach the lungs, the patient develops pneumonia (pneumonic plague), which is transmissible from person to person through infected droplets spread by coughing.
In the 14 Century the Black Death, as it was then known as, killed an estimated 75 to 200 million people.