International health authorities are on alert for a case of plague that is not even known to really exist. The death of a worker in a laboratory of this disease in the Russian region of Irkutsk on October 2 sparked suspicions and the World Health Organization (WHO) has offered technical help to the Russian government this Wednesday, while requesting more information about the case to be able to evaluate the risk.
Because today almost everything is unknown and Russia has yet to answer many of the questions that the WHO has asked. Its general director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a press conference that when his organization requested information, the Russian authorities replied that no case of plague had been recently reported in the Irkutsk region and that they had quarantined about 200 people who had had contact with the deceased.
"However, the WHO has requested more information on the laboratory tests carried out on the deceased person and his contacts, more details on what motivated the public health measures and data on the health status of those contacts. We have also requested verification of media reports indicating a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause. The WHO has offered technical support in relation to the plague and biosafety and protection in laboratories. As we do not yet have the full picture of this event, we cannot make a exhaustive risk assessment,” said the WHO director.
Russia has attributed the death to pneumonia of unknown etiology, but the opacity with which it is handling the case has sparked speculation about the possible laboratory origin of the infection. The suspicion is that it is pneumonic plague - as pointed out by local media Liudi Baikala -, one of the most serious variants of the disease, with a high lethality, but which is treatable with antibiotics if detected in time. Another fear is that it is a drug-resistant variant, which would prevent conventional treatments from taking effect.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's pandemic response director, has insisted several times that she does not have “all the information” about what is happening in Siberia. “We will continue to ask Russia until we understand the situation and the risk, both for Russia and the rest of the world,” he said. “As far as we know, the causative agent has not been identified and that is why we need more information,” said Van Kerkhove.
Among the unanswered questions are what tests have been done on the deceased researcher - which Russia assures have been negative -, what was the succession of symptoms that ended with her death from pneumonia, what type of contacts she has had, what quarantine they are following, if they have developed any signs of illness.
The WHO cannot send inspectors if the affected country does not request it, something that has not happened at the moment, but Van Kerkhove has also influenced the organization's willingness to send specialists in epidemiology, biotechnology or the plague itself to Russia.
This is not the first Russian health crisis this year in which the opacity of the authorities unnerves its citizens. Between spring and summer, its employees carried out several massive and forced slaughters of pigs in different regions of Russia without giving farmers any explanation other than the detection of a dangerous infectious disease. This happened mainly in two Siberian regions, in Novosibirsk in March and in Tyumen in August, and the unofficial reason was the appearance of several outbreaks of African swine fever, according to Russian media.
Several countries are monitoring the case
Among the many pieces of information that local media are considering about the possible case of pneumonic plague, one is that the researcher has traveled to Thailand and has returned infected from there, although the authorities of this country have not confirmed that the deceased has passed through Thailand. In a statement, Thailand's Department of Disease Control (DDC) indicated that, like other countries, they are verifying and following up on the information, with the help of the WHO.
Sources from the Thai Health and Foreign Ministry told EFE this Wednesday that they still do not have information about the woman's alleged passage through the country - visited every year by thousands of Russian tourists - and that they will communicate news about it when there is any. After a preliminary evaluation, Thailand determined “that the risk of importation of the disease is low, given that the incident in Russia is limited to a specific area,” says the letter released this week by the DDC.
From the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday: "Obviously, it is up to Russia to share more information with the rest of the world. (...) Maybe it is something more serious than we think. We don't know, but I think it would be imprudent, given how limited the information we have remains, to speculate at this time." For his part, Donald Trump told White House reporters on Tuesday that he has a “pending conversation” with Vladimir Putin to address the matter. “We will probably be able to report on it tomorrow,” he said.
The United States embassy in Moscow sent an alert this Monday to its citizens in Russia about the health crisis in Irkutsk. “We are aware of press reports from the Irkutsk region about a suspected case of pneumonic plague that resulted in the death of one person, as well as quarantine measures and the closure of hospitals in said city,” the notice states.
The Chinese government has also pointed to the existence of “close exchanges” with Russia on the case for “the prevention and control of infectious diseases, including plague,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in a brief response to questions on the subject during his daily press conference.
The Mongolian authorities, for their part, have ordered the implementation of “health supervision measures” on the border with Russia. The country's Ministry of the Interior has indicated that, “although the risk is currently low,” it has urged “relevant Government agencies to take the necessary precautionary measures to maintain vigilance and supervision in the face of potential dangers.” "The border crossings continue to operate normally. Health supervision measures will be implemented in these areas," he clarified, according to information broadcast by the Mongolian television network Live TV and collected by Europa Press.
