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Russian authorities have quarantined a hospital and are monitoring contacts of an employee at a plague research institute in Siberia who contracted pneumonia from an “unknown” cause. Local state TV said the woman died last week. Russian authorities said they found no evidence that her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with. But the case has raised alarm in Russia after unconfirmed media reports suggested she might have died of pneumonic plague — a less common but severe form of plague that can spread from person to person. The woman worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East in Irkutsk, south-eastern Siberia. A state TV station in Irkutsk reported on Monday that she died last week in a hospital in Shelekhov, a town just outside Irkutsk. The hospital has been placed under quarantine, Mayor Maxim Modin said, no longer admitting or discharging patients, and its laboratory halted carrying out routine tests. The hospital’s outpatient clinic kept operating as usual, he said. Anna Popova, head of Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, flew to Irkutsk and met with governor Igor Kobzev and other officials on Friday. Mr Kobzev said everyone who came into contact with the woman is under medical supervision. He did not identify the infection and called it a suspected case of “a particularly dangerous infection”. Rospotrebnadzor was implementing “a full range of anti-epidemic measures”, he added. Rospotrebnadzor said on Sunday the woman was diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology”, or origin, and said “extensive” testing found “no microorganisms associated with the patient’s professional activities”. The agency also said it did not uncover any incidents at the institute “involving pathogenic microorganisms”. Two people who were in contact with the woman tested positive for a virus that causes a common cold and two others for Covid-19, the agency said, adding that others who were tested were all negative
The Irkutsk Aluminum Plant in Shelekhov required staff to wear masks as a precaution, its director Artyom Fominykh said on Telegram, calling for calm and adding: “Better be safe than sorry. ”
The World Health Organisation describes pneumonic plague as a less common but severe form of plague — a disease caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium usually found in small mammals and their fleas.