A man from Inner Mongolia, in northern China, has contracted the bubonic plague after eating a wild rabbit, the local health authority said on Sunday.
The diagnosis came less than a week after two other people from the region were reported to have fallen ill with the pneumonic form of the disease.
Plague, which comes in three strains " bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic " is categorized as the most severe contagious disease in China due to its high infection and mortality rates.
The latest victim is a 55-year-old man who was not named. He caught and ate the rabbit on November 5 and appeared unaffected for more than a week. However, on Saturday he fell ill with a fever and went to the hospital for help, the statement said.
After being diagnosed with the infectious disease, 28 people with whom he had been in close contact were quarantined, according to the statement.
The statement said the rabbit case is unrelated to the other two cases, who are from remote villages in Inner Mongolia and were diagnosed with pneumonic plague earlier in the month. They are receiving treatment in Beijing.
The Beijing Health Commission said on Saturday that one of the patients was now in stable condition. The second person was in a more perilous state despite having earlier shown signs of recovery.
Several people who had been in contact with the two victims were quarantined but have since been released from the hospital after showing no signs of the disease, the commission said.
Although plague has been mostly eradicated in China, cases are occasionally reported in northern parts of the country. According to official yearbooks, there have been six fatalities from the disease in the past five years.
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