Thousands of people in Northwest China have tested positive for the bacterial disease. This happened after a leak in a laboratory for a state-owned pharmaceutical factory, which has been making animal vaccines last year.
About 3,245 people contracted brucellosis in the city of Lanzhou. This infectious disease is caused by the Brucella bacteria which generally occurs in livestock, such as cows, sheep, goats and causes joint pain and headaches.
Chinese authorities say the factory’s laboratory used expired disinfectants in vaccine production from July to August 2019. Bacteria are also not killed in the laboratory exhaust fans.
As a result, there is contaminated gas to form aerosols that contain bacteria. Blown away by the wind, the gas arrived at the Lanzhou Animal Research Institute and infected nearly 200 people there in December last year.
“More than 20 students and faculty members at Lanzhou University, some of whom have been to the institute, have also later tested positive,” wrote AFP, quoting the Xinhua news agency, Friday (19/9/2020).
Authorities have revoked the brucellosis vaccine production license at the factory. Patients, Lanzhou authorities said, will also be compensated starting in October.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), person-to-person transmission of brucellosis is extremely rare, but some of the symptoms of the disease may recur or never go away.
These include fever and chronic fatigue. The worst is inflammation of the heart or arthritis.
Source : cnbcindonesia
