According to the London-based Al-Quds Al-‘Arabi, Algeria has documented 50 cases of the plague, some within 15 kilometers (9 miles) of the border with Libya, where two people have died of the disease. As a result, Algiers has tightened medical surveillance on its borders with Libya.
Officials there fear that Bedouin are crossing the borders from the Illizi province into Libya and passing the disease back into Algeria, according to local Algeria and Moroccan press.
Rodents in the area have been seen bearing the disease, Aphaluck Bhatiasevi, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization (WHO), told The Media Line. “But it hasn’t infected people for 25 years,” she said. “They’re still investigating the cause. It‘s likely exposure to fleas. It’s not pneumonic plague, which can be transmitted from one person to the other. It stops at the person who gets infected.”
Health authorities in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco are also taking extra measures to contain the disease, Al-Quds Al-‘Arabi reported. Earlier this month, Egypt closed its border with Libya following confirmed reports that around 13 people were infected with the bubonic plague in the Libyan coastal city Tubruq, 93 miles from the Egyptian border.
The Libyan media reported between one and three fatalities from the disease, and Bhatiasevi said the Libyan authorities were being extremely supportive, cooperative and open with the investigation. She added that they have also launched awareness campaigns in the area.
Algeria and Libya share a border 982 kilometer (610 mile) long, and a large, unsupervised passage of people and goods flow through the border daily.
Additionally, the bubonic plague scare coincides with reports of the outbreak of dozens of cases of swine flu in these countries.
The Egyptian Ministry of Health placed Sallum, the port city bordering Libya, under quarantine, and health checks were conducted on everyone returning from Libya. Egypt also sent two high-level delegations to the area, to set up a field laboratory and an isolation facility outside Sallum.
Hospitals in the region were put on high alert and additional ambulances were sent to the area as an additional preventive measure.
Some believe the outbreak could be connected to the consumption of camel meat or caused by camel fly bites. Outbreaks connected to the consumption of contaminated camel meat were reported in the past in Libya, Jordan and more recently in Saudi Arabia in 2005.
The WHO describes the plague as a disease of wild rodents. The plague is spread from one rodent to another by fleas and then to humans via the bite of infected fleas or during the handling of infected hosts.
If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be successfully treated with antibiotics.
The bubonic plague, a disease that attacks the lymphatic system, is also known as the ‘Black Death’, as black bumps sometimes appear on the victim’s skin.
If the bacteria reach the lungs, the patient develops pneumonia, which is transmissible from person to person through infected droplets spread by coughing.
Pneumonic plague, one strand of plague, is one of the most deadly infectious diseases and patients can die 24 hours after infection. As noted, this is not the strain that is currently being documented in Libya.
In the fourteenth century, 75 million people – a third of the European population at the time – perished from bubonic plague, and to date, it has claimed close to 200 million lives.