A plague scare has hit Russia, where about 200 people have been placed in quarantine after a laboratory technician died and they were found to have been in contact with her. The outbreak is being monitored and possible measures assessed, Daily Mail Online reports.
It said Daria Shipilova, 28, worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Siberia, where she was exposed to the bacteria that cause pneumonic plague. According to the news outlet Lyudi Baikala, Shipilova told doctors that a test tube containing live bacteria had broken by accident. She later fell ill while on a field expedition with colleagues in Buryatia, which lies near Russia’s border with Mongolia.
Shipilova was admitted to hospital on 29 September and was later put on a ventilator, but she died two days afterwards. She had been in contact with about 200 people, who have now been placed under observation for fear of an outbreak.
Security has been tightened at three hospitals in the region and masks have been made compulsory. Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev said none of those under observation had shown signs of illness so far and their tests had not detected plague infection, the Moscow Times reported. The hospital where Shipilova was being treated has also been placed under quarantine, and the people who came into contact with her have been taken to other hospitals.
Pneumonic plague causes a severe infection of the lungs. Its symptoms include fever, shortness of breath and a cough that brings up blood, and they usually begin three to seven days after exposure. If antibiotic treatment starts within the first 24 hours, the death rate from pneumonic plague falls to about 17%, but without treatment the disease is fatal in almost all cases.
There are also allegations that the Russian authorities are trying to conceal exactly what happened. Reports claim that stocks of the medicines used to treat the disease are running low in the region, and that frightened residents are crowding pharmacies and medical centres demanding supplies.
Mikhail Favorov, a senior Russian epidemiologist, has rejected the explanation that a test tube broke, calling it ridiculous, according to the Moscow Times.
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