A Mongolian couple died from the bubonic plague after eating raw marmot meat, sparking a quarantine that trapped tourists for days, officials said Monday.

According to AFP, the couple died May 1 in a remote area of the country's Bayan-Ölgii province, which borders China and Russia.

A six-day quarantine of 118 people who had come in contact with the couple, including locals and a number of foreign tourists, had been lifted as of Tuesday, Ariuntuya Ochirpurev, a World Health Organization official, told the BBC.

Ochirpurev told BBC that the couple ate the rodent's raw meat and kidney, which is believed to be good for health in the area.

"After the quarantine (was announced) not many people, even locals, were in the streets for fear of catching the disease," Sebastian Pique, an American Peace Corps volunteer in the area, told AFP.

Bubonic plague can be transmitted via infected fleas and animals, like prairie dogs, squirrels, rats and rabbits, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

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Throughout history, plague epidemics have caused widespread death around the globe in certain periods. While modern antibiotics can now treat the disease and prevent its spread, infections in humans do still occur in parts of the western United States as well as in Africa and Asia, the CDC says.

The local governor Aipiin Gilimkhaan told AFP that no other cases have been reported in the area. According to the new agency, at least one person a year in Mongolia dies from the plague, often from eating raw meat carrying Yersinia pestis, the plague bacterium.

Swollen, painful lymph node, usually in the groin, armpit or neck, is the main symptom of the bubonic plague, the CDC says. Fever, chills, headache, and extreme exhaustion can also occur.