An area folk remedy considered to provide good health had the exact opposite effect for just one Mongolian couple: After eating the raw kidney of a marmot, the pair died of bubonic plague, AFP news agency reported on Monday. Health authorities responded by declaring a quarantine that included locals and foreign tourists that has come into experience of the couple.

Plague, one of several deadliest bacterial infections in human history, caused an estimated 50 million deaths in Europe during the Middle Ages. Symptoms, which often appear within someone to 7 days after infection, include painful, swollen lymph nodes, called bubos, along with fever, chills and coughing.

Plague has made a recent comeback. Having caused close to 50,000 human cases during the last 2 full decades, it is currently categorized by World Health Organization as a re-emerging disease. Worse, the bacterium causing plague, if changed into an aerosolized form, is known as the most likely biothreats and is classified as such because of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Plague affects humans along with other mammals, the CDC reports. Usually, people get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea carrying Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that creates the condition, or by handling an infected animal. Cats, which become sick themselves, can directly infect humans, while hardier dogs may carry the fleas back into their owners. People can also become sick by inhaling droplets from the cough of an infected person or animal.

The bacteria persist because low levels circulate among populations of certain rodents, the CDC says. These infected animals and their fleas act as long-term reservoirs when it comes to bacteria.

Plague occurs naturally in the western united states of america, particularly Arizona, California, Colorado, and New Mexico, where an average of seven human plague cases are reported each year to the CDC.

Plague is available on all nations, except Oceania, based on World Health Organization. Although epidemics have occurred in Africa, Asia, and south usa, most human cases since the 1990s have took place Africa. Today, the 3 most endemic countries are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Peru.

In Madagascar, bubonic plague cases are documented virtually every year throughout the epidemic season, between September and April.