A Russian researcher, who died from an unknown illness, worked at a remote anti-plague facility. Few foreigners have visited these labs, which dot the former Soviet states, and are shrouded in secrecy.
Over the weekend, the World Health Organization released a disease outbreak report on the events surrounding the death of a Russian infectious disease researcher earlier this month, highlighting that Russia has yet to report a confirmed cause of death. With that "key uncertainty," the United Nations health agency said it remains impossible to assess the risk of the event or whether the public health measures Russia took were adequate to prevent spread of the unknown disease.
The WHO reported that, so far, it has seen no evidence of ongoing transmission of the mystery disease. "However, confidence in the assessment remains limited by the absence of a confirmed etiological diagnosis, and the remaining uncertainty regarding the source and mode of exposure," the agency wrote in its report.
The agency laid out the order of events as information trickled out from Russian authorities, noting that it only became aware of the death via media reports on October 2. The WHO subsequently made contact with Russian authorities and requested information on October 3, 6, 7, and 8.
Russia’s silence over the death of a lab worker underlines that pandemic preparedness amounts to nothing if information on threats is withheld
In pandemic preparedness work, scientists like to focus on the technical challenges: identifying pathogens, diagnosing infections, understanding their effects and developing vaccines and treatments. Each step promises progress through human innovation, investment and planning. The World Health Organization (WHO), for example, brings experts together to identify and prioritise emerging disease threats and collect theevidence needed to prepare for them. But preparedness depends on more than scientific innovation.
As the past week has shown, politics is the elephant in the room in all of this. No one could have predicted we would be talking about pneumonic plague, and that the death of a single lab worker in Russia would cause global headlines. It might feel like an overreaction: the WHO deals with thousands of potential disease signals worldwide every month. But the circumstances of this case are unusual given the lack of transparency from Russian authorities on what happened – and ongoing concern about biological weapons research.
In other plague matters, Russia Says It Found No 'Emergency' in Plague Lab: "Ms. Shipilova's [previously explained and now] unexplained death prompted the Russian authorities to quarantine part of the hospital where she was taken, the institute's staff and other people whom she had come into contact with in her final days." News comes on the heels of a report of a second death at the same hospital.
New information around the death of a lab worker, including a statement that she had been vaccinated against the plague, came as U.S. officials demanded more data.
The entrance to the grounds of the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk, Russia, on Wednesday. An employee of the institute died of a mysterious pneumonia.
Quarantine measures have been in place in several hospitals in eastern Russia since a 28-year-old laboratory worker, Darya Shipilova, died after falling ill at work following a reported accident at a plague research centre in Siberia. Russia’s health watchdog has said she died of ‘pneumonia of unknown aetiology’, but there is speculation about a possible plague infection. Lucy Hough speaks to Science Weekly co-host Madeleine Finlay
World Health Organization detects no sign of further outbreak since Darya Shipilova died last week
The World Health Organization has said the risk of an epidemic in Russia is low after the sudden death of a lab technician who worked at a plague research institute in Siberia.
Roughly 200 people are under medical observation, several hospitals are under quarantine, and dozens are in isolation in Russia following the unexplained death of an infectious disease researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia, in the town of Shelekhov, according to early reports of the situation on Sunday and Monday.
Researcher Darya Shipilova reportedly died last week from pneumonia of "unknown" cause, according to Rospotrebnadzor, a Russian public health agency.
Unconfirmed information regarding her death has swirled. Some reports have claimed she accidentally broke a test tube containing the plague pathogen, Yersinia pestis, on September 25. She subsequently fell ill, was admitted to a hospital September 29 with severe pneumonia and died overnight between October 1 and October 2. The head of the Russian region that neighbors Irkutsk, Alexey Tsydenov, initially reported that she had died of plague but later altered his statement to say she "possibly" died of the disease.
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