A 38-year-old man in northwest China's Gansu Province has died of plague, local authorities said. The case was reported in Yumen City under the jurisdiction of Jiuquan City, Xinhua quoted the Jiuquan government as saying on Thursday. The man, who died on Wednesday, had been in contact with a dead marmot, which is of the squirrel family. A total of 151 people who had close contact with the man have been put in quarantine and are under medical observation. None of them has reported syndromes of the disease so far, according to the local government. The National Health and Family Planning Commission has sent disease prevention and control specialists to Yumen to prevent the plague from spreading. Plague is categorized as a Class A infectious disease, the most serious under China's Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases.
