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Reports first emerged on Friday of almost 200 people being placed under observation in Siberia’s Irkutsk region following the death.<\/p>\n
The lab worker, named in Russian media as Darya Shipilova, had reportedly fallen ill a couple of days earlier.<\/p>\n
Unconfirmed reports suggested that she had become ill after breaking a test tube containing the pathogen at the Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East where she worked – or following a field trip to a region where plague occurs naturally among wild rodents.<\/p>\n
As the US and the WHO sought more information, the country’s health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, issued a statement saying “there are no epidemic risks for the population of Irkutsk and the Irkutsk region”.<\/p>\n
It said more than 90% of the people who had been in contact with the victim had “completed medical observation” and “no health disorders associated with infectious pathology were detected”.<\/p>\n
In the immediate wake of the laboratory worker’s death, Rospotrebnadzor had issued a statement saying the woman had died of “pneumonia of an undetermined etiology” and that testing found “no microorganisms related to her professional activities”.<\/p>\n
However, after this announcement, a pro-government federal news outlet deleted five posts mentioning a possible plague case, and authorities in the town of Baikalsk deleted a message advising against travel to Shelekhov because of a possible plague infection.<\/p>\n
Ongoing speculation into the lab worker’s death has sparked a back and forth between Russia and the US, with questions about a possible spread outside of Russia.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US had “measures” available to help Russia if the situation turned out to be more serious than claimed.<\/p>\n
According to the WHO, pneumonic plague has a very short incubation period – sometimes just 24 hours – and can be fatal, if not diagnosed and treated early.<\/p>\n
People can be infected through:<\/p>\n
Symptoms include shortness of breath and coughing, often with blood-tainted phlegm.<\/p>\n
The bacterium that causes the plague, Yersinia pestis, found among rodents such as marmots in the area.<\/p>\n
It killed up to half the population of Europe in the 14th Century when it was known as the Black Death<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was in response to an outbreak in the 1920s that the Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, was founded just over 100 years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n