Russia Plague: 5 Unanswered Questions
Newsweek · C · trust 74/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. The death of Darya Shipilova, an employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Russia, has raised public health fears about the prospect of an outbreak of the disease she researched as questions grow about the unexplained case.
Russian authorities have identified those who were in contact with her and they are under medical supervision, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
However, U.S. officials have urged more transparency from Moscow and the demand for answers about the case comes amid reports of hospitals being quarantined.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, for comment.
The death of Shipilova, 28, has prompted theories about her job at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, which researches dangerous infections.
There are three main clinical forms of plague infection—bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic, according to the WHO.
Pneumonic plague, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, often found in small mammals and their fleas, was listed as a possible cause for her death according to reports.
However, Rospotrebnadzor said Shipilova died from "pneumonia of unknown etiology.” It added that tests found no microorganisms linked to her work and there has been no release of laboratory evidence confirming that the death was due to Y. pestis .
This means that Russia's official assessment of the case does not confirm the plague.
The WHO said Russian health officials had informed it that no case of plague has been recorded in Irkutsk and that the woman’s illness “initially presented as a typical acute respiratory viral infection.”
Irkutsk’s governor, Igor Kobsev, has said no “microorganisms linked to the employee’s professional activities were detected” in her body. However, as of Tuesday, detailed test results have not been made public.
This lack of public information about the case has raised questions, according to Amos Weiskopf, editor of Plague News.
“She worked at a plague institute, where plague can be tested for within hours,” Weiskopf told Newsweek . “Four days after her death the official cause is still ‘unknown origin', and no other cause has been named.”
Shipilova allegedly accidentally broke a test tube containing the plague pathogen at work on September 25 and failed to report the incident, according to unconfirmed reports.
On Sunday, Rospotrebnadzor refuted this claim, adding that a special commission had found no accidents involving pathogenic microorganisms at the institute.
Siberia Realities, the Siberian version of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe, reported that Shipilova's former colleagues were angered by claims she had violated regulations for working with a dangerous pathogen and tried to cover it up.
One former classmate named Valentina said that all the regulations of the laboratory were extremely strict and “so all these accusations against Daria are a complete shock to us."
Javier Pizarro-Cerda, head of the Yersinia Research Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, said people working with plague normally wear a full body suit, masks and gloves, “so even if you break a tube, normally you should be protected.”
Russian national and local media is tightly controlled by the Kremlin, so the official accounts of the incident have differed from reports in independent outlets.
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday to focus on official statements from Rospotrebnadzor and not on "various rumors."
Alexei Tsydenov, the head of Buryatia—a Russian republic that borders the Irkutsk region— was the first official to mention the plague.
But he appeared to row back from his initial statement on social media that the patient had “died of the plague” to “may have died of the plague,” prompting confusion.
However, one source told People of Baikal, an independent Telegram channel that is closely following the story, that doctors in Irkutsk are "already openly talking about the plague.”
Russian state TV coverage mentioning the plague appears to have occurred only once, by the defense ministry channel Zvezda on October 2.
Internet Archive’s TV News Archive shared data with Newsweek that showed how the channel’s presenter said that the head of the Irkutsk region, Kobzev, had announced an emergency meeting with Rospotrebnadzor head, Anna Popova.
The presenter said this followed information that appeared locally about how a patient “had died of the plague.” However, the channel was “the first and only one to air the story,” Internet Archive told Newsweek .
Rospotrebnadzor published statements on its own sites. One, from its Irkutsk office dated 2 October, confirms the emergency commission met with Popova over a suspected especially dangerous infection.
But Weiskopf said that despite the watchdog’s assessment that no microorganisms were found on the patient linked to her work, it hasn't published the results "and still gives the diagnosis as pneumonia of unknown origin.”
The U.S. State Department told Newsweek that the plague “is a known disease and is treatable with common antibiotics, especially when treatment starts early.”
Reports that entry to hospitals in Irkutsk has been restricted have not been confirmed by the authorities, raising questions about the nature of the threat and how health authorities are dealing with it.
People of Baikal reported that three city hospitals, a children's hospital and a maternity hospital, had been quarantined and that up to 200 people were under observation.
An expectant mother told People of Baikal she had been screened for plague symptoms when she went for a checkup at the Irkutsk Prenatal Center days before the birth of her child.
Ulyana Gavryunina, who blogs about her pregnancy on Instagram, told the outlet she had been informed that the maternity hospital…
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