What to know about pneumonic plague after woman in Russia dies from mysterious illness
NBC News · LC · trust 63/100
The woman died Friday, according to the World Health Organization, with no cause of death confirmed. A Russian official said the woman died of pneumonia of “undetermined” origin and did not link her death to her work at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East. The U.S. State Department said, however, that it’s monitoring reports of a fatal case of suspected pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region, in southeastern Siberia, in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“While the circumstances of this reported case remain unconfirmed, plague is a serious bacterial disease that is treatable with antibiotics, particularly when recognized and treated early,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. “At this time, there is no indication from available reporting of a broader threat to the United States.”
Key details aren’t known, including whether the woman was infected with plague at all and, if so, whether it was naturally occurring plague or bacteria studied in the lab. Scientists also don’t know how quickly her illness progressed and what treatment she received. Nearly 200 people who came into contact with the woman are under precautionary medical observation, according to Russian media.
“Maybe it’s going to come out that she died from something unrelated and it was just a coincidence” that she worked in an anti-plague lab, said Lisa Morici, a microbiologist and immunologist in the Tulane University School of Medicine.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s former Covid response coordinator, told NBC News in an interview, “If there were weapons programs, biological weapons programs in these labs, that would be much more concerning to me.”
“We need to understand that now,” he added.
The situation is still rapidly unfolding. But here’s what we know about the pneumonic plague, how it spreads and how dangerous it is.
Plague is an infection caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria. Known as the “Black Death” during the 14th century, the plague triggered several global pandemics over centuries before the discovery of antibiotics.
It presents in three main forms: bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic, according to the World Health Organization . All three are caused by Yersinia pestis, but they occur in different parts of the body.
Bubonic is the most common form, Morici said. It is primarily transmitted through bites of infected fleas or direct contact with infected rodents, which can cause painful, swollen lumps in the lymph nodes. It is usually not contagious.
Left untreated, however, it can spread to the lungs and become pneumonic plague, which can pass from person to person through respiratory droplets, Morici said.
Septicemic plague occurs when the bacteria grow and spread in the blood.
Pneumonic plague can spread through the air when an infected person or animal coughs or sneezes.
The respiratory droplets don’t travel very far, maybe three to six feet, said Dr. Dave Wagner, director of the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute at Northern Arizona University. “They drop to the ground pretty quickly.”
It’s the rarest form of the disease, according to WHO.
Dr. William Schaffer, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said close contacts are most at risk. Pneumonic plague isn’t something that spreads “distantly across a room, but to face-to-face contacts,” he said.
“It’s highly unlikely for most people to get the pneumonic form of the disease,” Morici said.
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“It’s nothing like the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said.
While pneumonic plague is the rarest form of the disease, it’s also the deadliest.
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