WHO says no plague case confirmed in Siberia lab worker death

The World Health Organisation has said Russian authorities have reported no case of plague in Irkutsk oblast in Siberia, where a woman working at a laboratory that studies the disease died of pneumonia last week. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency sought clarification from Russia under international health regulations after initial media reports suggested a possible case of pneumonic plague linked to an alleged accidental laboratory exposure.

The UN health agency said it remains in touch with Russian authorities and that the current risk is limited. On Tuesday, WHO said the possible case presented a "very low" risk outside Russia, and spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Russian authorities had attributed the woman's illness to "a typical acute respiratory viral infection".

The woman worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, which WHO said studies "dangerous pathogens". Tedros said, "the Russian health authorities reported that no case of plague had recently been registered in Irkutsk oblast". WHO also noted media reports about a second employee of the institute "with pneumonia of undetermined cause".

Russian health officials, through an international health alert system, said a full range of preventive steps had been taken, including contact tracing, medical monitoring and laboratory tests. "Test results showed no presence of dangerous infectious disease pathogens in any of the contacts," the note said. It added, "Based on available data, laboratory test results, and health status, medical monitoring for 100 per cent of the contacts has now been concluded. The epidemiological situation is stable and remains under monitoring."

The woman died at a hospital in Shelekhov, near Irkutsk, and the town's mayor said the hospital had been placed under quarantine. Senior officials from Russia's public health watchdog travelled to the region on Friday. On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the public to follow official statements from Rospotrebnadzor rather than "rumours or speculation".

WHO said plague occurs naturally in wild animals in the Irkutsk region. It described pneumonic plague as the most virulent form of the disease, with an incubation period that can be as short as 24 hours. The illness affects the lungs, can spread between people through respiratory particles, and can be fatal if untreated, though recovery rates are high if it is detected and treated in time. Symptoms include shortness of breath and coughing, often with blood. WHO said the more common bubonic plague is usually caused by the bite of an infected flea, while pneumonia is an acute respiratory infection mostly caused by viruses or bacteria and generally spreads through contact with infected people or airborne droplets.

Lindmeier said WHO's initial assessment put the risk at "moderate-to-low for Irkutsk; a low risk for the Russian Federation as a whole; and very low for the WHO European region". The case has also drawn attention in the United States. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was watching the situation with concern and that the US would be willing to help, though he had not spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about it. Asked about Trump's remarks, Peskov said on Tuesday, "it is always very good when mutual assistance is offered," but referred further questions to Rospotrebnadzor.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Moscow to release more information. "Maybe there's nothing there. Maybe it's bigger than we thought. We don't know," he said in Iceland. "We encourage Russia to be more transparent and share more information with the world," Rubio said, adding that information so far had been "quite limited". Dr Glenn Wortmann of MedStar Washington Hospital Center said the bacteria that cause plague do not "travel very far" and that a person would "really need to be face-to-face" with an infected person to catch pneumonic plague. He added, "The chance of this spreading widely in Russia and then extending here to the US will not happen, not with this type of bacteria, because it's not spread easily and we have antibiotics to stop it from spreading." Overall, WHO and Russian authorities have said no plague case has been confirmed in the region, while monitoring and information-sharing continue.

With PTI Inputs

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