Death of Russian lab worker prompts quarantines in Siberia amid unconfirmed plague reports

Russian authorities have placed nearly 200 people under medical observation and quarantined several hospitals in Siberia’s Irkutsk region after an anti-plague institute employee died, though officials have not confirmed plague as the cause.

The woman, in her 20s, worked at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute and was treated for severe pneumonia at Shelekhov Hospital, where she died. Some media reports identify her as Darya Shipilova. Officials have not publicly confirmed her name.

Officials described her illness as “pneumonia of unknown aetiology.” Governor Igor Kobzev and other authorities avoided the word “plague” in the first 24 hours. Kobzev convened a regional commission on sanitation and epidemic prevention over a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection,” and Russia’s Chief Sanitary Officer Anna Popova traveled to attend.

The Moscow Times reported that the woman died of plague, while authorities have not verified she had the disease. Alexey Tsydenov, governor of the neighboring Buryatia region, said a woman had died “possibly from plague.”

How she was infected remains unclear. One account says she returned from a work trip to Buryatia, where an outbreak was reported near the Mongolian border. Another says she broke a test tube containing a dangerous bacterium in the lab while collecting specimens for diagnostic purposes.

Reports put the number of quarantined hospitals at three to five, including the Shelekhov hospital. Authorities in Baikalsk urged residents not to travel to Shelekhov because of plague, then deleted the post hours later, Euronews reported.

Russian epidemiologist Gennady Onishchenko sought to reassure residents, saying plague-carrying rodents and fleas in Siberia usually go dormant by early October.

Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and persists in rodent populations in parts of Central Asia, Mongolia and Siberia, where isolated human cases occasionally occur. The World Health Organization describes pneumonic plague as the most virulent form, affecting the lungs with an incubation period as short as 24 hours.

Russian officials have not released further details on the woman’s diagnosis or the status of those under observation.