People in quarantine, an unclear death, questionable information from the authorities. Experts do not currently have an exact answer to what is happening, but there is still the all-clear.
Irkutsk. A death after pneumonia of an undetermined cause – that brings back unpleasant memories for many people of the beginning of the corona pandemic.
There is a lot of speculation after the death of an employee at a plague research center in Siberia. US President Donald Trump announced that he wanted to telephone Russian President Vladimir Putin about the case. The World Health Organization is calling for more information. Experts give an assessment based on what can currently be proven.
Why is the case causing so much attention?
The reason for this is a combination of the historical symbolism of the plague, official information from Russia that is doubted, and concerns about a possible pandemic with a specially bred deadly pathogen.
What can be said about these three points?
Historical symbolism: The plague is linked in the collective memory with horrific epidemics. Untreated pneumonic plague is almost always fatal, while bubonic plague is fatal in the majority of cases. The plague ravaged Europe for centuries; the epidemic in the 14th century with many millions of deaths is known as the “Black Death”.
One of the last major plague epidemics in Western Europe occurred in Marseille between 1720 and 1722. Larger and smaller outbreaks continued to occur in other parts of Europe.
Since then, living conditions and a very crucial point have changed: the plague pathogen is a bacterium - and bacteria can be treated with antibiotics.
Information from Russia: The 28-year-old scientist at the Institute for Plague Control in Irkutsk in Siberia died last Friday in the hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov. It was speculated that she could have been infected with the pneumonic plague pathogen, possibly in a laboratory accident.
In Irkutsk and Shelekhov, the operation of individual clinics and other facilities was reportedly restricted because of the case, and around 200 possible contact persons are said to have been quarantined. The authority responsible for disease control subsequently denied reports of both a laboratory accident and a plague infection. The cause of death was given as pneumonia, without any information about the pathogen.
From a technical point of view, the Russian system of disease control is considered to be fast, strict and therefore effective. The fact that there is a lot of speculation surrounding the case is also due to the fact that Russian or previously Soviet authorities have often denied or downplayed catastrophes - be it the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 or the sinking of the nuclear submarine “Kursk” in 2000. Trust in official reports is low.
Pandemic Concern: The United States classifies the plague pathogen Yersinia pestis as a Level 1 Bioterrorism Select Agent, the highest risk category for pathogens that can pose a serious threat to public health and safety.
The US health authority CDC cites the low infectious dose, the high mortality of untreated infections and the historical use for this purpose as reasons.
In 1346, according to historical tradition, the Mongol-Tatar army in Caffa - today Feodosiya on the Crimean peninsula - hurled plague-infected corpses over the city wall, triggering an outbreak. During World War II, a Japanese unit released millions of infected fleas in China. The resulting outbreaks led to numerous illnesses and deaths.
There is currently speculation in Russia that the woman who died from the plague could have worked as such a bioweapon. Roman Wölfel, head of the Bundeswehr's Institute of Microbiology, says he currently sees no reliable basis for assuming that the incident is related to the development of biological warfare agents. “This would require much more advanced microbiological, epidemiological and forensic findings.”
Trump stated that he did not believe there was a biological weapons connection. When asked about this in the White House, he said: "Well, we don't believe that."
Is it unusual for an institute to conduct research on the plague?
No. Numerous working groups are dealing with the plague, including in Germany. Research into the plague is necessary because the disease has by no means disappeared: several hundred cases are reported worldwide every year, mostly geographically limited, especially in Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo, explains Malick Gibani from Imperial College London. There are many animal species that carry the bacterium, so there is always a risk of transmission to humans.
In Siberia, the pathogen is circulating in various rodents and their fleas. According to official information, the “Research Institute to Combat Plague in Siberia and the Far East” in Irkutsk, founded in 1934, is conducting research into this. Yersinia pestis is also found in wild animals in western parts of the USA, said Brendan Wren from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). People get infected there regularly. Germany is currently considered plague-free.
“The plague is not a disease of the past,” emphasizes Zania Stamataki from the University of Birmingham. “Diagnostics, vaccine development and monitoring of antibiotic resistance require laboratories in which the live pathogen is stored and examined.”
Is research being conducted on the plague as a potential bioweapon?
According to the US agency CDC, research into the plague pathogen as a bioweapon was carried out in the Soviet Union during the Cold War between the Eastern and Western blocs. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the program was discontinued according to official Russian information, but Western concerns about possible continuations or revivals never completely disappeared.
According to the CDC, the most worrisome scenario for a bioterrorist attack is the release of Yersinia pestis into the air - for example over large cities. Intentional contamination of food or water supplies is also a potential risk.
Why is there a danger even though antibiotics can be used?
In order to have a good chance of recovery, pneumonic plague, which can be transmitted through coughing or sneezing, must be treated with antibiotics as soon as possible when symptoms first appear. Multi-resistant forms in which common remedies no longer work pose a danger - according to the CDC, such variants were created in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
One of the many unsubstantiated speculations currently circulating is that the institute in Irkutsk may be working with such strains of the plague pathogen. Antibiotic resistance would limit treatment options, explains Wölfel. Naturally occurring resistance is extremely rare in plague bacteria.
How likely is such an operation?
According to experts, it is low. A resistant pathogen would not automatically be a particularly suitable or reliably usable biological warfare agent, says Wölfel. “From the perspective of a potential attacker, biological warfare agents have a fundamental problem: their effect can only be controlled to a very limited extent.”
After a release, it cannot be reliably determined who comes into contact with it and who does not. “Therefore, a danger to one’s own forces, one’s own population or uninvolved third parties can arise.” This mixture of high levels of danger and limited controllability makes biological weapons an extremely problematic and rightly internationally banned instrument.
In the possible case in Russia, it should be borne in mind that pneumonic plague is not comparable to other respiratory diseases such as influenza or Covid-19, which are caused by a highly contagious virus. There is no reason to fear a similar global spread. “The human-to-human transmission of plague usually requires close contact,” explains Wölfel. It can also be easily contained through isolation and quarantine measures.
