The thinly Tibetan populace in remote Ziketan, Xinghai located in Qinghai Province has now a reported two deaths due to the pneumonic plague. The state media has stated that close to ten other people within the town have been infected with the pneumonic plague. An airborne disease that can be transferred from human to human and animal to human lays siege on the lungs causing early signals of fever, headache and breathlessness.

A 32-year-old herdsman was the first fatality of the remote town area, Ziketan of north-west China. After the second death of a 37-year old man who was a neighbour of the first infected victim, the 10,000 populated Ziketan has been sealed off with none being given permission to exit the area. The authorities are being quite swift about outbreak control with a detailed hunt down of those individuals who might have been in close quarters with the two fatalities. A warning has been issued by the local health bureau that cautions those ailing from fever or cough and who have made a trip to Ziketan from mid-July to seek medical assistance as soon as possible.

The local officials of the north-west China have informed BBC that matters are well in control with educational institutions and office establishments been kept open.

Anticipating an outbreak, the local health officials in Qinghai have discharged a fifty-five strength squad across the province to aid in supervising and controlling the disease. The WHO speaker Vivian Tan has praised the rapid efforts of the local officials to curb the pneumonic plague that is significantly vituperative, and if not treated has high rate of fatality.