WHO downplays the risk of a plague epidemic

It was just over a week ago that a 28-year-old laboratory assistant died of a "particularly serious form of pneumonia" in Shelekhov, Russia. According to Russian media reports, it happened after an accident with a test tube in a laboratory that handles plague bacteria. Around 200 people were quarantined.

The infection tracking is now complete, according to the WHO.

- According to the information we have, all the patient's contacts have been identified and monitored. No one has so far shown any signs of illness, says spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, The Guardian reports.

Russian authorities are still investigating whether the laboratory assistant's death was caused by pneumonic plague. The WHO describes the health risk for residents of Irkutsk as "medium to low", for the whole of Russia the risk is "low" and for Europe the risk is "very low".

In a statement on Sunday, the Russian health authority Rospotrebnadzor claimed that the situation in the current region of Irkutsk is "stable". According to the authority, no cases of infectious diseases have been reported among the laboratory's employees in the past ten days.

Anders Johansson, head of department and state epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency, believes that Swedes need not worry, even if it were pneumonic plague.

- It is extremely unlikely that a single case in southern Siberia would have significance for Sweden. The risk that Yersinia pestis as we know the bacterium today, if that is what we are talking about, would spread from person to person across the earth as covid did does not exist in societies with modern hygienic standards, Johansson has told DN.