Speculation about a possible outbreak of pneumonic plague in Siberia after the death of a laboratory employee

Moscow. After the death of a hospital patient in the Irkutsk region of Russia, there is speculation about a possible outbreak of pneumonic plague in Siberia. According to local media reports, warnings against traveling to the city of Shelekhov were first distributed and then deleted, reports the Kremlin-critical news portal Meduza.

The day before, a 28-year-old patient died in the Shelekhov district hospital. According to unconfirmed reports, she worked in a laboratory and fell ill after a business trip. According to other unofficial reports, she became infected with the plague pathogen after a test tube fell in the laboratory. However, there was no official confirmation of this.

The authorities of the Irkutsk region informed about a consultation on a “particularly dangerous infectious disease”. All contact persons are under “medical observation”. According to unconfirmed reports, there are up to 200 people.

The epidemiologist and former top medical officer Gennady Onishchenko then assured the state news agency Tass that there would be no spread of the disease. “Most likely” the infection is not the plague. Prevention and treatment measures are also known.