Chinese Authorities Lift Quarantine Order

Life in a remote Chinese town that was quarantined after an outbreak of pneumonic plague

was returning to normal on Sunday after authorities lifted the blockade following a 

week without infections , Telegraph.co.uk reports. 

Chinese authorities have lifted a quarantine order that was imposed on a remote town of 10,000 people to contain a deadly outbreak of pneumonic plague, according to a report on Sunday.

Local authorities removed the order on Saturday evening after no new cases of the plague were detected in a week, the Beijing News daily said.

The outbreak of the highly virulent disease killed three people in Ziketan, a town in a Tibetan area of Qinghai province in China's mountainous northwest , AFP reports.

Nine patients in quarantine are in stable condition and are recovering from the illness, said Dong Fukui, a deputy prefecture governor.

Earlier one patient was near to death and another was in serious condition.

Quarantine was also lifted for another 332 people who had close contacts with the patients.

Dong ordered medical staff to continue disinfecting the region and step up monitoring over plague outbreaks , Xinhua reports.