Russia plague lab death still unexplained, WHO says

The World Health Organization said Oct. 7 that it does not know what killed a worker at a plague research institute in Irkutsk, Siberia, as Russia insisted the death was pneumonia of unknown origin and called reports of a second case fake.

About 200 people who had contact with the woman were placed in quarantine, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at his Oct. 7 briefing, and the agency is still waiting on the laboratory results behind Russia’s response.

The woman died on Oct. 2, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s director of epidemic and pandemic management, as reported by The Associated Press. Russian reports blamed pneumonic plague, a form of the disease that can spread from person to person through airborne droplets, but Russian authorities have not confirmed that.

Tedros said the first media reports appeared on Friday, Oct. 2, and the WHO asked Russia for information under the International Health Regulations the next day. On Oct. 6, he said, Russia told the agency no recent plague case had been reported in Irkutsk oblast. The WHO has requested the test results, the reasons for the public health measures and the health status of the contacts. It has also asked Russia to verify reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause.

“As we don’t yet have the full picture of this event, we are not able to conduct a full risk assessment,” Tedros said.

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s public health watchdog, said “extensive” testing found no evidence that any pathogen the woman worked with caused her illness, AP reported. The agency said she had been vaccinated against dangerous infections and that a probe at the institute found no emergencies in the handling of pathogens. Euronews, citing the agency, reported that nearly 5,000 laboratory tests found no dangerous pathogens and that more than 90 per cent of her contacts had finished medical monitoring.

On Oct. 8, the agency called reports of a second person falling ill after contact with her fake, according to AP via PBS NewsHour. It gave no new information about her illness or the reasons for the wide-ranging emergency measures in the region.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Oct. 7 that “the overwhelming majority of what the media are reporting around this situation is false information,” and urged Russians to rely only on Rospotrebnadzor, Euronews reported. The same report said the U.S. State Department had formally asked Moscow for more information.

AP reported that Russian state television and other state-controlled national media have largely avoided the story, and that some outlets withdrew earlier reports. Canada News Media could not independently verify either side’s account.

The WHO had earlier rated the risk outside Russia as very low, citing the country’s reduced international contact, and noted that plague occurs naturally in wild animals in the Irkutsk region, Euronews reported. Pneumonic plague has an incubation period as short as 24 hours, is fatal without treatment and is highly treatable if caught early, the same report said.

Health Minister Marjorie Michel said Oct. 5 that Canada was “very closely following reports” and that “there’s no risk to Canada,” as reported in our earlier story. The Public Health Agency of Canada also said it had identified no current risk. Canada News Media found no further Canadian government statement after the WHO’s Oct. 7 briefing.

Tedros said “timely, complete and transparent information sharing” under the International Health Regulations is essential. The WHO has not said when it expects Russia to provide the results it requested, and the reports reviewed as of Oct. 11 contained no new official findings. The situation is developing.

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Via The Associated Press (PBS NewsHour) and Euronews, with remarks from the WHO Director-General’s Oct. 7 media briefing.