NEW DELHI: Rais are once again dying in Mama village in Beed district of Maharashtra, the site where plague broke out exactly a year ago, says reports.
But officials here said that the situation is being watched very carefully and there is no cause for worry.
A six member expert team is already on the spot to investigate, The team has been sent by the technical advisory committee under Prof, V. Ramalingaswami which is just about ready to submit its report on the causes ‘of 1994 plague outbreak, A spokesman for the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NCD) in New Delhi described the fresh ratfalls as a “spillover” effect.
He said that Breed is a known “focus” for plague and such spillover occurs in an “epizootic” zone where the plague organism,” yersinia pestis, keeps circulating among wild rodents.
Plague does not spread to humans directly from wild rodents. Domestic rats get infected first and fleas pass on the infection to human.
NICD is unable to say if the dying rodents are wild or domestic type.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 25, 1995
