3rd person dies of pneumonic plague - towns residents flee

SHOOT: I can hear people whining now: 'But only 3 people have died. Thousands of people die from TB,Malaria etc each day.' The danger here is in the POTENTIAL for catastrophe. The same applies to swine flu.

YAHOO: "A lot of people ran off last night when they heard that another person died of this plague. They are mostly from other provinces," said a foodseller surnamed Han who runs a stall at the Crystal Alley Market. "They headed back home with food, mineral water and their donkeys."

It was unclear if the people who headed out of the town made it past the police checkpoints. Officials at the local and provincial level were unavailable to comment.

According to the World Health Organization, pneumonic plague is one of the deadliest infectious diseases, capable of killing humans within 24 hours of infection.

clipped from news.yahoo.com BEIJING – Medical staff raced to disinfect a sealed-off town in northwestern China on Tuesday after a third person died within four days in a pneumonic plague outbreak in the farming community of 10,000, local authorities said. Police set up checkpoints around Ziketan in Qinghai province after the outbreak was first detected last Thursday. The lung infection is highly contagious can kill a human in 24 hours if left untreated. Medical staff are disinfecting the area and killing rats, insects and fleas that can be carriers for the bacteria, a notice on the provincial health department Web site said. Authorities are keeping close track of people who came into contact with those infected.