Couple Eats Raw Rodent Meat, Dies of Bubonic Plague

6-day quarantine declared in Mongolia
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted May 7, 2019 5:42 PM CDT
Couple Eats Raw Marmot Meat, Dies of Bubonic Plague
File photo of a marmot.   (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)

A Mongolian couple who took part in a supposed "folk remedy for good health," per the BBC, ended up dying of bubonic plague. The couple ate raw marmot meat and kidney and came down with the highly contagious plague, and on May 1, 118 people who had come in contact with them were quarantined and given antibiotics for prophylaxis. The six-day quarantine has now come to an end, allowing multiple tourists who were involved in the quarantine to leave the remote region where the couple died. No other cases of the plague have been reported, per the Guardian. (An American child came down with a rare case of the plague last year.)

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