Edited sentence: A 2006 WHO report from an international meeting on plague cited a Chinese government disease expert as saying that most cases of the plague in China's northwest occur when hunters are contaminated while skinning infected animals.According to spokesperson Vivian Tan of the WHO office in Beijing, "In cases like this [in August 2009], we encourage the authorities to identify cases, to investigate any suspicious symptoms among close contacts and to treat confirmed cases as soon as possible.Official statistics posted on the Chinese Health Ministry's Web site showed no cases of plague in 2007 and 2008.Outbreaks can be caused when a person eats an infected marmot or comes into contact with fleas carried by rats.So far, they have done exactly that.The People's Republic of China has eradicated the pneumonic plague from most parts of the country, but still reports occasional cases in remote Western areas where the disease is carried by rats and the marmots that live across the Himalayan plateau.The expert said at the time that due to the region's remoteness, the disease killed more than half the infected people.The most recent outbreak of the disease in China began in August 2009 in Ziketan Town located in Qinghai Province and is an ongoing situation.The report also said that since the 1990s, there was a rise in plague cases in humans—from fewer than 10 in the 1980s to nearly 100 cases in 1996 and 254 in 2000.The town has been sealed off and so far three people have died as a result of the disease.There have been sporadic cases reported around the country in the last few years so the authorities do have the experience to deal with this