A reported death of a laboratory technician in Siberia that sparked fears of plague has prompted the World Health Organization to issue a measured assessment, saying the overall public health risk in Russia appears low.
Concern flared after reports claimed pneumonic plague had killed 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, who worked at an anti-plague institute in the Irkutsk region. The allegation drew attention because the area is known for naturally occurring plague among wild animals.
“The WHO initial risk assessment from the information available estimates the risk to be moderate to low for Irkutsk, a low risk for the Russian Federation as a whole, and very low for the WHO European region,” UN health agency spokesman Christian Lindmeier said.
Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, Mr Lindmeier said: “A woman who worked at a laboratory in Irkutsk oblast has died, and the authorities are looking into whether pneumonic plague caused her death.”
He said Ms Shipilova had been employed at a facility that researches dangerous pathogens in Siberia, where plague circulates in wildlife, underscoring why local authorities were treating the case with caution.
“The illness initially presented as a typical acute respiratory viral infection,” he said.
Mr Lindmeier added that officials had traced and identified people who had been in contact with her and put them under observation.
“According to the test results, no pathogens of dangerous infectious diseases were detected among any of the contacts,” he said.
He said the agency was continuing to track developments. “WHO is following the situation closely, working with headquarters to keep other countries informed,” and it is prepared to assist Russian authorities if requested.
Moscow has moved to play down claims that Ms Shipilova died of plague, even as US President Donald Trump said the United States was monitoring the reports and stood ready to offer support.
“We’re looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington planned to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.
“We’ll help them, we’ll help them as much as we can.”
The Russian outlet People of Baikal, citing unnamed sources close to the regional security services, reported that Ms Shipilova may have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube.
Other outlets also pointed to a possible connection between her death and a laboratory accident at the institute.
People of Baikal said as many as 200 people who may have had contact with her were under quarantine, but did not provide further details.
Russian officials, however, emphasised that post-mortem testing had not found evidence of the disease.
Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said an inspection by a special expert commission concluded that “the cause of death was pneumonia of undetermined aetiology”.
In a message posted on Telegram, he said tests conducted by Russia’s consumer and health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor found that “no microorganisms linked to the young woman’s professional work were found in her biological samples”.
He also said there had been “no new cases of staff from the anti-plague institute seeking medical attention” since her death.
Mr Kobzev described the sanitary-epidemiological situation in Irkutsk as “stable”.
“The situation remains under our control and that of the experts.”
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‘Rumours and speculations’
When questioned yesterday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged reporters to “rely on Rospotrebnadzor’s official statements rather than … rumours and speculations”.
Plague is a bacterial disease that can emerge in several forms. Pneumonic plague is the most contagious and can spread via respiratory transmission, while bubonic plague is typically spread through infected fleas.
According to the World Health Organization, pneumonic plague can be fatal if not treated early.
The developments are being followed closely in Washington, where the Covid-19 pandemic, which began during Mr Trump’s first term, remains a defining reference point for health security fears.
Mr Trump has repeatedly endorsed the theory that Covid-19 resulted from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was tracking the situation in Russia but saw no “cause for alarm”.
“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously, but like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread,” Mr Rubio told reporters before departing for a visit to Iceland.
“So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it. And we’re doing that.”
Experts said the measures reported so far in Russia appeared “proportionate”.
“It appears that measures are being implemented to quarantine any potential contacts and prevent any onward transmission,” Malick Gibani, clinical associate professor in bacterial vaccinology at Imperial College London, said in a commentary.
