WHO director of Epidemic and Pandemic Management Maria Van Kerkhove said Wednesday the UN health agency doesn’t know how a 28-year-old lab worker in Siberia, who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia, died.
She urged Russia to provide more information about a case that has prompted global concerns about suspected pneumonic plague. The United States and the European Union have also urged Moscow for more information after the death of the 28-year-old woman.
Van Kerkhove said the agency doesn’t know what the “causative agent” was behind the woman’s October 2 death, which unconfirmed reports in Russia blamed on pneumonic plague — a less common but severe form of plague that can spread from person to person, the Associated Press reported.
“We don’t understand how she was infected,” Van Kerkhove said. “We need information in a timely way. We need regular information. We need answers to the follow-up of the questions that we have asked.”
“We have posed these questions to our colleagues in the Russian Federation. In fairness, they have responded. We’ve gone back with more questions,” she said.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said that the global health agency has asked Moscow for more information on Saturday, in accordance with the International Health Regulations.
“The lab worker died after being hospitalised with severe pneumonia. Initial media reports suggested pneumonic plague following an accidental lab exposure,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“WHO is aware that the Russian government held a meeting on October 2 because they suspected a resident of the Irkutsk oblast (region) had contracted a dangerous infection,” Tedros told a press conference.
“We don’t yet have the full picture of this event and we’re not able to conduct a full risk assessment,” Tedros stressed.
“Timely, complete and transparent information sharing under the international regulations is essential to clarify conflicting reports and enable an accurate assessment of potential public and risks.”
The WHO’s statement came after Russia responded on Tuesday, saying no plague case had been reported in the Irkutsk region and that around 200 contacts had been quarantined.
A Russian-state TV station in Irkutsk reported that the lab worker died October 2 in a hospital in Shelekhov, a town just outside Irkutsk. Officials quarantined that hospital and were monitoring the worker’s contacts.
The World Health Organization said Wednesday it could not produce a full risk assessment as it did not have the whole picture from Russia on the suspected plague death of a laboratory technician.
In its tersely worded statements, Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, did not link the case to pneumonic plague, saying that only the lab worker had contracted pneumonia of “unknown” origin.
The severe disease is less common than the better-known bubonic plague linked to the Black Death in the Middle Ages. Pneumonic plague spreads from person to person, causing a severe form of pneumonia, but recovery rates are high if it is detected and treated in time.
Rospotrebnadzor said that “extensive” testing found no evidence her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.
Rospotrebnadzor said on Sunday that the lab worker was diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” meaning its origin was not known.
Russia has released little information about the case. Russian authorities have kept a tight lid on information about the case, which has been surrounded by secrecy.
While it has raised global concerns, Russian state TV and other national state-controlled media have largely steered clear of the subject. Some news outlets withdrew earlier reports about the case.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Russian authorities had indicated that no case of plague had recently been reported in the Irkutsk region, and that they had placed about 200 contacts in quarantine.
In its latest statement Tuesday, Rospotrebnadzor said, as per AP, “the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region, the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov is calm.”
Authorities were completing a “complex of prophylactic measures and medical observation over contacts,” it said, adding that so far they have found two cases of COVID-19 and two cases of rhinovirus.
“No other infectious pathogens have been found among contacts,” it said.
