Researcher at Russian plague laboratory dies of ‘unknown’ infection
Russian officials are scrambling to contain the release of a suspected deadly infection from a laboratory that has claimed the life of a researcher.
The leak happened at the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, near the city of Irkutsk in southern Siberia, Russian state media outlet TASS reported.
An illustration of the Yersinia pestis bacterium that causes pneumonic plague. sitecore\pstock
The government agency responsible for infectious disease, Rospotrebnadzor, said it was unclear exactly what was released.
One person, a laboratory worker, died after being diagnosed with a pneumonia of “unknown” origin.
The researcher who died last Friday was identified as Daria Shipilova, 28, by the Moscow Times.
Other Russian media outlets say she fell ill after she was exposed to a broken test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen while working at the research centre.
Russian authorities say they are responding to the incident and are carrying out special measures in Irkutsk, home to 600,000 people.
“The sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region, the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov is stable,” Rospotrebnadzor said.
The Siberian city of Irkutsk, home to about 600,000 people. Public Domain
Unofficial reports, including by the independent regional news outlet Liudi Baikala, say that nearly 200 people were placed under observation at the hospital in Shelekhov to which Shipilova was taken.
Quarantine has also been imposed in at least one of the city’s maternity hospitals.
Pneumonic plague is one of three types of plagues that are caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The other two types typically spread from contact with infected fleas, animals or infected tissues. But the pneumonic plague, or lung-based plague, can transfer easily from person to person through respiratory particles.
Patients with pneumonic plague develop fever, headache, weakness and “a rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and sometimes bloody or watery mucous,” according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The World Health Organisation has noted that plague has a high fatality rate, but is also easily treated with antibiotics and the use of precautions to prevent infections.
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