The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that it was ‘carefully’ monitoring a case of bubonic plague discovered in China after being notified by Chinese government authorities reports the Daily Mail.
A WHO official said that the situation was being ‘well managed’ by China and not considered to be a high risk.
A shepherd in China’s northern Inner Mongolia region was confirmed to have the bubonic plague over the weekend – also known in the Middle Ages as the ‘Black Death.’
The Bubonic plague is considered to be among the deadliest diseases in history, boasting a body-count of 100 million victims in the 14th century alone.
The development comes following the WHO’s public praise of Bei Jing for what they called a speedy response to the novel coronavirus back in January. At that time, the UN agency called China’s work and commitment to transparency ‘very impressive, and ‘beyond words’.
However in March, the WHO declared a pandemic that was catalyzed by covid-19 after it spread to dozens of countries. To date, the virus has killed over 538,000 people worldwide.
The government of Bayan Nur, the Chinese city that initially reported the bubonic plague case, issued an early epidemic warning on Sunday after identifying the shepherd as a suspected patient.