Death at the Plague Institute: Apparently no case of plague in Siberia - but new information is missing

After the death of an employee at a plague research center in Siberia, the Russian side still lacks precise information about the cause. The authority responsible for disease control in Moscow tried again on Tuesday to dampen fears about a possible epidemic.

“The health and epidemic situation in the Irkutsk region and in the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov is calm,” the Rospotrebnadzor authority said on the Russian Max platform. A report circulating on the Internet about anti-epidemic measures and strict restrictions is false. “No such decisions have been made so far,” it said.

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 even in a laboratory accident.

Rospotrebnadzor denied both an accident and a plague infection in a statement on Sunday. The cause of death was given as “pneumonia of unknown etiology” (pneumonia of unknown origin). Advanced examinations did not find any microorganisms in the patient's body that were related to their professional activity - the Interfax news agency quoted the statement as saying. But there is no information about which pneumonia pathogen the woman died from.

In Irkutsk and Shelekhov, three hospitals, a children's clinic and a birth center were closed because of the case. The Pest Institute staff is in quarantine. According to authorities, no further infections were detected. The Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan increased their vigilance at their borders against the entry of potentially infected people. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Russia to provide more information.

Despite attempts by the Russian authorities to calm the situation, speculation about a possible impending epidemic is rife on the Internet. The measures in Irkutsk 4,200 east of Moscow are viewed with suspicion. The reasons are varied. On the one hand, the global corona epidemic began at the turn of the year 2019/20 with reports of a mysterious lung disease in the city of Wuhan in China. However, the course of infections is different with plague pathogens than with Covid-19.

On the other hand, Russian or Soviet authorities have often denied or downplayed catastrophes - be it the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986 or the sinking of the nuclear submarine “Kursk” in 2000. Trust in the official reports is low. This year, Russian authorities in Siberia slaughtered thousands of farm animals because of alleged animal diseases, even though farmers believed their livestock to be healthy.

Scientists tend to support a more sober view of the Irkutsk case. “Research is being carried out on plague and other infectious diseases in many countries around the world,” said biochemist Peter H. Seeberger from the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam to the dpa. Since there is a risk of the plague being used as a bioweapon, “among other things, it is about developing detection strategies and possibly vaccinating.”

The reaction of the Russian authorities with quarantine for employees of the institute and for clinics is proportionate - especially in the event of a possible case of plague, say experts. It is prudent to take precautions for anyone who may have been in contact, said Malick Gibani of Imperial College London. Pneumonic plague can only be treated with antibiotics if it happens quickly enough.

The only possible problem with treatment could be if work in Irkutsk had been done with strains of the plague pathogen that were resistant to many antibiotics - says Brendan Wren from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Alice Hughes from the University of Melbourne said even if an infection were to be confirmed, the pathogen was unlikely to spread because of the rapid countermeasures.

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, explained Gibani. There are many animal species that carry the bacterium, so there is always a risk of it passing to humans. The disease also occurs in Russia, and the pathogen Yersinia pestis is circulating in various rodents in Siberia. The institute in Irkutsk, founded in 1934, is conducting research into this. “The plague is not a disease of the past,” emphasized Zania Stamataki from the University of Birmingham. “Diagnostics, vaccine development and monitoring of antibiotic resistance require laboratories in which the living pathogen is stored and examined. This work is essential to be prepared for outbreaks.”