Was it plague? It still is not totally clear in the case of a 28-year-old woman who died last week. She worked in a Russian lab where the plague is studied.
During a Monday press conference, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it seems that there was a worker at the lab that was infected, and there’s concern that that could have spread, at least internally,” when asked about “the suspected plague case in Russia.”
“There’s very limited travel between the U.S. and Russia, obviously,” said Rubio. “But like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread. So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it, and we’re doing that.”
According to a Monday NBC News report citing Russian media and the World Health Organization, the woman worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East. She died Friday, per the WHO. Another NBC News report published Tuesday said that regional and national Russian authorities have not confirmed that plague was involved in her death.
Igor Kobsev, regional governor of the Irkutsk region, said that the 28-year-old died of a “pneumonia of undetermined” origin, per another NBC News report. He said no “microorganisms linked to the employee’s professional activities were detected” in the woman’s body, and that there had been “no new cases” of illness among other employees at the lab.
Still, Russian media cited by NBC News said nearly 200 people who had been in contact with the woman were place under precautionary medical observation. Maksim Modin, mayor of the Shelekhov municipal district near the border with Mongolia, also said that the inpatient facility where the worker was reportedly treated had been closed for quarantine as of last Friday.
NBC News said Tuesday that plague had not been detected among close contacts of the worker with 60% of the identified group tested. It cited watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, which reported that lab testing confirmed two cases of COVID-19 and two cases of rhinovirus (common cold) infection.
There are other questions floating around the case as well, NBC News said. It noted that it isn’t clear how quickly her illness progressed or what treatment she received.
“Many details have not been confirmed. We encourage Russian authorities to share accurate information quickly and openly,” said an official from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in a statement provided to News Nation. “Plague is a known disease and is treatable with common antibiotics, especially when treatment starts early. Cases occur naturally in many parts of the world.”
Plague is a disease in humans caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is famous as the pathogen that fueled multiple high mortality plagues in human history, including a global pandemic from the 1300s known as the Black Death. Yersinia pestis can develop into bubonic plague impacting the lymph nodes, pneumonic plague if it spreads to the lungs and septicemic plague (this form can result in tissues turning black and dying) if it spreads to the blood.
“Patients develop fever, headache, weakness, and a rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and sometimes bloody or watery mucous,” with pneumonic plague, according to the CDC. “Pneumonic plague develops when bacteria spread to the lungs of a patient with untreated bubonic or septicemic plague, or when a person inhales infectious droplets coughed out by another person or animal with pneumonic plague. Pneumonic plague is the most serious form of the disease and is the only form of plague that can be spread from person to person. The incubation period of pneumonic plague following inhalation can be as short as +1 day.”
“CDC is aware of and closely monitoring reports of a suspected case of pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region of Russia that resulted in a death,” the CDC said in a Tuesday X post. “We are working across the U.S. government to assess developments as additional information becomes available. While the circumstances of this reported case remain unconfirmed, plague is a serious bacterial disease that is treatable with antibiotics, particularly when recognized and treated early.”
As the CDC noted, even though plague still exists today – and is endemic in some areas, such as the American Southwest – antibiotics are an effective treatment. In the U.S., around seven human plague cases are reported annually, with about half reported in New Mexico, where it typically circulates in wildlife and is transmitted through flea bites.
“Plague symptoms in humans include sudden onset of fever, chills, headache and weakness. In most cases, there is a swollen, painful lymph node in the groin, armpit or neck area,” according to the New Mexico Health Department.
Last year, Audacy reported on a human plague death in neighboring Arizona and this year on a case identified in a wild rat in New Mexico. No cases (human or animal) have been reported in New Mexico since July.
The Atlantic said in an article this week that “in a world on edge still from the last pandemic, rumors of a deadly disease that could have escaped from a lab can cause some understandable distress – however speculative they might be,” regarding the reports of a potential plague case. Lab-leak theories regarding the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, have been debunked by many experts, but they still persist.
