Ethnic Tibetans get treatment for disease caught from animals

For more than four years, Danzin Yudron, a herdswoman from Tsomai county in the Tibet autonomous region, had not felt well, with pain in her back and a reduced appetite.

The 32-year-old said she had no idea what ailment she might have had until September last year, when she was given screening tests at Tibet No 2 People's Hospital in Lhasa, the regional capital, by doctors from 302 Military Hospital, a major hospital in Beijing that specializes in the treatment of infectious diseases.

Both Danzin Yudron and her 12-year-old daughter, Peng Qiong, were diagnosed with echinococcosis - a parasitic disease prevalent in the region - and several days later they were sent to the military hospital in Beijing for surgery.