"Nezha 2" is a hit, groundhogs are popular, the National Health Commission reminds that they can spread plague

The recent movie "Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon King" became a huge hit, and groundhogs also became popular, with emoticons appearing all over the place, making them popular cute pets.

In the movie, the scene where the groundhog family "eats from broken bowls and gets poked in the nose by Nezha" quickly went viral because of its magical lines and silly actions. Recently, many people on the Internet have been selling and raising groundhogs.

Today, the National Health Commission and the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued a reminder: Marmots can also spread plague. Once infected with the plague, patients will suddenly develop symptoms of high fever and swollen lymph nodes. The condition often deteriorates rapidly, and the possibility of death is extremely high.

Therefore, no matter how cute groundhogs are, do not have close contact with them.

It is understood that groundhog, also known as marmot, is a rodent commonly found in northwest my country.

The marmot is a national second-class protected animal and is listed in the 2016 Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union.

Plague is a highly contagious disease with an acute onset, strong infectiousness, and high mortality rate. It is a Class A infectious disease.

It is reported that plague is mainly transmitted through vectors, contact and droplets.

In natural epidemic areas, transmission by vectors is the main mode of transmission. Fleas are the main vector of plague. Fleas living on groundhogs are infected with plague bacteria and then bite humans, causing human infection.

Contact transmission refers to when people come into contact with infected marmots, or the excrement or secretions of plague patients, the bacteria enter the body through wounds on the skin surface or mucous membranes, causing infection.

In addition, the respiratory secretions of patients with pneumonic plague contain a large number of plague bacteria. The bacteria released by patients when breathing or coughing can form droplets, which can cause infection when inhaled by others.