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It is plague, says NICD

NEW DELHI, FEB. 18. Scientists at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed tonight that the disease which recently broke out in the villages of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal was plague, sources said.

All the three tests - recommended by the World Health Organisation - which were carried out on the organism isolated from the patients' samples were positive for yersinia pestis, bacteria that causes plague. The results have been communicated to the Union Health Ministry.

The scientists said it would take time to determine whether the strain of the plague bacteria was the same as the one that had led to the 1994 outbreak in Surat. - PTI

P. Sunderarajan reports from New Delhi:

The ``plague-like'' outbreak near Shimla claimed one more life today, with a 31-year old woman dying at a Chandigarh hospital. With this, the toll has risen to four. (An AP report, however, said that a fifth person died on Monday). Sources in the Health Ministry said no new case had been reported, indicating that the epidemic had been contained.

The Himachal Pradesh Government submitted a report to the Prime Minister, A. B. Vajpayee, on the sequence of events and the preventive measures being taken.

The Chief Minister, P. K. Dhumal, is personally monitoring the situation. The State has set up a core group, and about 18,000 persons have been provided preventive medicines.

Earlier, Himachal Pradesh had a special set-up for surveillance of the forests for any presence of plague in wild rodents. The mechanism was dismantled a decade ago purportedly due to paucity of funds. After the 1994 Surat plague, the Centre sent several reminders to the State to revive the mechanism but they fell on deaf ears.

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