China's northwest Gansu Province reported its second plague case this year in November, China's Ministry of Health said on Monday.

The patient died, the ministry said in its monthly report on infectious diseases. No further details were provided.

Gansu also reported China's first plague case this year in September.

Plague, also called the Black Death, is an infectious disease of animals and humans caused by a bacterium. People usually get the plague through contact with infected insects or animals.

In November, infectious diseases claimed 697 lives in China with nearly 430,000 cases recorded, according to the ministry.

China's Law on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases classifies diseasesd into three categories.
 
Under the law, A-Class infectious diseases are limited to plague and cholera. B-Class diseases include 25 ailments such as viral hepatitis, while C-Class diseases include 10 conditions such as influenza.

The ministry said the top five infectious diseases, accounting for 87.66 percent of the total cases of A and B-Class diseases, were tuberculosis, hepatitis B, syphilis, diarrhea and gonorrhea.

The top five killer diseases were rabies, tuberculosis, AIDS, hepatitis B and hemorrhagic fever, according to the ministry.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2007)