A 28-year old female lab technician at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia, Russia, died of double pneumonia (infection in both lungs) late last week.
Government officials in Russia have not confirmed that the woman died from pneumonic plague, but several media reports suggest she died after an accident involving a broken vial containing a live sample of plague, a deadly bacterial infection. Now, a rumoured 200 people are suspected to be under quarantine.
Rospotrebnadzor, the official Russian infectious disease agency, said, “No micro-organisms associated with the employee’s professional duties were detected in samples taken from the patient.”
But over the weekend, media in Russia and elsewhere in Europe started to stoke concerns over a lab leak incident or fears that the woman worked in a bioterrorism unit. They suspected that the Russian government was covering up something that posed a serious risk to global health.
Case does not cause ‘undue concern’
Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), which publishes CIDRAP News, said that if the woman did die from pneumonic plague, it would be possible to contain, and close contacts and fellow lab workers would be given prophylactic (preventive) antibiotics.
This case does not cause undue concern.
“This case does not cause undue concern,” Osterholm said. “We would like more information, of course.”
Osterholm explained that if this incident happened in a friendly nation, people would not be so quick to jump to allegations of bioterrorism. But information from Russia, China, or North Korea often lacks transparency. Osterholm also said that, despite the attention-grabbing headlines, plague infections occur every year around the world.
The bacterium Yersinia pestis is linked to three main types of plague. The first, bubonic plague, is the one associated with the Black Death and the Middle Ages. It’s spread through flea bites and attacks the lymph nodes. Septicaemic plague is also spread through flea bites and occurs when the bacteria enter the bloodstream.
Pneumonic plague attacks the lungs and is the deadliest of the three main plague types. It’s also the most dangerous in terms of biosecurity, because it can be transmitted from person to person via respiratory droplets. It is considered extremely contagious and has a short incubation period (time from exposure to first symptoms) of roughly 24 hours.
From 2019 to 2025, the World Health Organization estimates there were 3800 suspected plague cases (mostly bubonic) in 10 countries, resulting in 423 deaths. The last recorded plague case in South Africa was in 1982.
The United States tracks five to seven cases of bubonic plague each year, most often in the Southwest. Though plague kills 30% to 60% of people without treatment, all three strains are very sensitive to modern antibiotics.
Source: University of Minnesota
