A young researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Siberia died from severe pneumonia of unknown origin after reportedly breaking a test tube at work, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The hospital that treated her was placed under quarantine and her laboratory colleagues were isolated. The death has been reported as a possible case of pneumonic plague, and it triggered international attention.
The World Health Organization says it has been in contact with Russian authorities and that, on currently available information, the public health risk to the general population is very low. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the circumstances remain unconfirmed and that there is "no indication of a broader threat to the United States" at this time, adding that it is working across the US government to assess developments.
"I think that's the correct assessment," Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told WIRED. "We don't know anything about anything right now." Russian authorities say contact tracing has not produced signs of dangerous pathogens spreading. Rospotrebnadzor, the federal public health agency, said extensive testing found "no microorganisms associated with the patient's professional activities."
The case matters because of what plague is and is not. The disease is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which persists in wild rodents and their fleas in many parts of the world. Pneumonic plague — the form contracted by inhaling infectious droplets — is the dangerous one and can pass between people through close contact, but human-to-human transmission is rare; the last reported occurrence was in Los Angeles in 1924. It is treatable: antibiotics cure plague if started as soon as exposure is suspected.
Experts point to two mitigating factors. The incident occurred in a remote region of Russia, which naturally limits onward spread — "Siberia is not exactly Paris," Gronvall noted — and the response toolkit is ordinary rather than experimental. "With Covid, that was a virus we had not dealt with in the past," said Rutul Dalal, an infectious disease physician at Penn State Health. "Here, we do have antibiotics to deal with this." Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have nonetheless set up quarantine protocols.
