More than 200 people have entered forced quarantine after a Russian laboratory worker died from reported exposure to the plague in an incident evocative of the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Daria Shipilova, 28, was admitted to the hospital with symptoms of severe pneumonia and died sometime overnight between October 1 and 2, Axios and other outlets report. Shipilova was employed at the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, a town in Siberia near the Mongolian border. Russian media report that Shipilova was exposed to the virus after breaking a test tube while collecting samples.
At least one prominent Russian epidemiologist has cast doubt on this narrative, according to The Moscow Times, claiming that the broken test tube story is evidence of a cover-up.
Russia’s public health agency reports that Shipilova contracted “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” though given her place of work, it is suspected that she contracted pneumonic plague, the “Black Death” that killed tens of millions in the Middle Ages. Following the incident, Russian authorities ordered 200 people who had come in contact with Shipilova into quarantine, and issued quarantine orders for at least five nearby hospitals.
The incident is evocative of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, which emerged after a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China in late 2019. The White House “is aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options,” a spokesman told Axios.
Little information is publicly available about the Anti-Plague Research Institute. It is unclear why exactly Russia maintains a facility dedicated to the disease that, while potentially deadly, is treatable with antibiotics if caught in enough time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Local news reports a shortage of antibiotics in the area surrounding the Anti-Plague Research Institute, where employees of an aluminum plant have reportedly been instructed to wear masks.
The pneumonic plague, which Shipilova is suspected to have contracted, is one of three types of the disease, and the only one capable of transferring from person to person. Russian authorities have urged calm in the face of reports, claiming that no other cases of the virus have been reported, and that coming cold weather will help slow transmission.
Plague symptoms include headache and fever, as well as “a rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and sometimes bloody or watery mucous,” according to the CDC.
While the Russian government insists that the situation is under control, regional reports suggest that officials are more concerned than official statements let on. Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s public health watchdog, reportedly traveled “2,600 miles from Moscow” to the area of exposure, according to the New York Post.
Popova has not yet commented on the outbreak.
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