Thousands of people in northwest China tested positive for a bacterial disease called Brucellosis after a leak at a biopharmaceutical company in 2019. This was informed by authorities on September 15, 2020.
The Health Commission of Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, confirmed that 3,245 people have contracted the disease. The bacterial disease is generally caused by contact with livestock carrying the bacteria called Brucella.
Another 1,401 people have also tested as preliminarily positive. No fatalities have been reported as of now, as per the city's Health Commission. Overall, the authorities had tested about 21,847 people out of the city's 2.9 million population.
What is Brucellosis disease?
The Brucellosis, also known as Mediterranean fever or Malta fever can result in symptoms such as fever, fatigue, headaches and muscle pain. While some of the symptoms go away quickly, some of the chronic ones never go away like arthritis or swelling in certain organs, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Can Brucellosis be transmitted from human-to-human?
The human-to-human transmission of the bacterial disease is extremely rare as per CDC.
How do people generally contract Brucellosis?
People generally contract Brucellosis by eating contaminated food or breathing in the bacteria.
What happened in Lanzhou?
In Lanzhou, as per researchers, the bacterial infection has been spread due to the leak in the biopharmaceutical company. People reportedly were infected by breathing in the bacteria.
How did Brucellosis outbreak happen?
The Brucellosis outbreak in Lanzhou is being traced to a leak at the Zhongmu Lanzhou biological pharmaceutical factory, which occurred between late July and late August 2019. The factory used expired disinfectants and sanitizers while producing Brucella vaccines for animal use. This means that not all bacteria were eradicated in the waste gas.
The contaminated waste gas formed aerosols, which contained the bacteria and were leaked into the air, carried by the wind down to the Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, where the outbreak first hit.
Who all have been infected?
The first report of the infections came in November from the people at the institute and it later accelerated quickly. By December end, at least 181 people at the institute were infected with brucellosis. The other infected include students and faculty members at Lanzhou University.
The Brucellosis outbreak also spread to Heilongjiang province, the northeastern tip of the country, where 13 positive cases were reported in the veterinarian institute in August.
What is happening now?
The officials have now launched an investigation into the leak at the factory. The authorities had revoked vaccine production licenses for the plant by January 2020 and withdrew product approval numbers for its two Brucellosis vaccines.
The factory had issued a public apology in February 2020 and said it had "severely punished" eight people who were deemed responsible for the incident. The factory also stated that it would cooperate with local authorities in the response and cleanup efforts and contribute to a compensation program for those affected.
Background
Brucellosis was a common disease in China in the 1980s. However, it showed a decline later with the emergence of vaccines and better disease prevention and control. There have been few other scattered instances of Brucellosis outbreak in the world including one in Bosnia that infected about 1,000 people in 2008, prompting the culling of sheep and other infected livestock.
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