Russia to tighten border controls amid Chinese plague outbreak
12:15, 4 August 2009
MOSCOW. August 4. KAZINFORM Russia will tighten its borders following an outbreak of pneumonic plague in the Chinese Qinghai Province, Russia's Chief State Health Inspector Gennady Onishchenko said on Monday; Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.
Chinese authorities have quarantined the town of Ziketan in the northwest of the country after an outbreak of pneumonic plague which has killed two and infected another 10 people.
Onishchenko said that the possibility of the infection making its way to Russia can not be excluded.
"Control over Russians and Chinese crossing the border will be tightened," he said adding that there are few visitors to the area at the moment.
He also said that how the infection is being transmitted is unclear and it "needs to be studied. It is not clear why it is a pneumonic plague. Normally, it begins with a bubonic plague," he said; Kazinform cites RIA Novosti.
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