Skyrider, at least give a semi-respectable reference - not The Sun, a comic book if ever there was! A newspaper for people who haven't learned to read yet. So therefore they don't know the difference between BUBONIC plague and PNEUMONIC plague, which this rag appears to use interchangeably.
That being said, what they describe appears to be a pretty bizarre ritual. If true.
Imagine... doing a sort of conga round the Fountain of Living Waters, passing a corpse around.
Actually, it's a wonder that at the time, the corpse wasn't embalmed and put on display, like Lenin's, and then it could be brought out at every anniversary event. Reckon anyone would notice that it really wasn't alive?