Ulan Bator, Sep 9 : Two additional cases of bubonic plague have been confirmed in Khuvsgul Province, northern Mongolia, bringing the national total to three, the country's health ministry said Tuesday.

The cases, reported in Tsagaan-Uul and Murun soums (administrative subdivisions), are being treated at the Khuvsgul provincial general hospital.

A total of 80 people who had contact with the patients have been isolated and are receiving treatment at local hospitals, the ministry said in a statement.

On September 7, a 24-year-old herder in Tsagaan-Uul soum died from the disease after consuming marmot meat.

Some 17 of Mongolia's 21 provinces are now considered at risk of bubonic plague, according to the National Centre for Zoonotic Diseases.

The bubonic plague is a bacterial infection spread by fleas carried on wild rodents such as marmots. Without timely treatment, it can kill an adult in less than 24 hours, the World Health Organization warned, Xinhua news agency reported.

Bubonic plague is an infection spread mostly to humans by infected fleas that travel on rodents. Called the Black Death, it killed millions of Europeans during the Middle Ages. Prevention involves reducing your exposure to mice, rats, squirrels and other animals that may be infected.

Bubonic plague deaths exceeded 25 million people during the fourteenth century. This was about two-thirds of the population in Europe at the time. Rats traveled on ships and brought fleas and plague with them. Because most people who got the plague died, and many often had blackened tissue due to gangrene, bubonic plague was called the Black Death. A cure for bubonic plague wasn't available.

There have been other episodes of bubonic plague in world history apart from the Black Death years (1346-1353). Bubonic plague still occurs throughout the world and in the US, with cases in Africa, Asia, South America and the western areas of North America. About seven cases of plague happen in the US every year on average. Half of the US cases involve people aged 12 to 45 years.

/IANS