There’s little to indicate that the news reports about a plague outbreak in Russia should cause you alarm at this point, but the situation is certainly worth keeping an eye on, and should remind you to check over your own readiness.
Remember what happened during Covid? Where were your pinch points? Were you one of the unlucky folks caught without toilet paper? How about other necessities like dairy products or fuel?
I’m not telling you to go into panic mode over the news from Russia, but giving yourself a once-over for preparedness is never a bad idea.
Here’s some information about the situation so far from various sources:
From the U.N.:
“A woman who worked at the laboratory in Irkutsk oblast has died, and the authorities are looking into whether pneumonic plague caused her death,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.
He underscored that her workplace was “an institute that studies dangerous pathogens, including plague, in a part of Siberia where plague occurs naturally in wild animals.”
Highly contagious
Plague is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis usually found in small mammals and their fleas.
Pneumonic plague occurs when the bacteria infect the lungs. WHO notes that this form of plague infection is especially contagious and “can trigger severe epidemics through person-to-person transmission via respiratory particles”.
According to WHO, pneumonic plague “can be fatal within 18 to 24 hours of disease onset if left untreated, but common antibiotics for enterobacteria can effectively cure the disease if they are delivered early”.
The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor), a government agency, has reported that the situation is stable. Interfax writes (translated from Russian):
Moscow. October 4. INTERFAX.RU – Rospotrebnadzor reported that the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region, the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov is stable.
“The sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region, the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov is stable. A special set of measures was organized and carried out in connection with the case of the disease of an employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, the diagnosis of “Pneumonia of unknown etiology,” the press service of Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement on Sunday.
According to the results of extended studies, no microorganisms associated with her professional activities were identified in the material from the patient, the department noted.
Rospotrebnadzor reported that no appeals for infectious diseases were registered among the institute’s employees over the past 10 days.
According to the results of the work of the commission for monitoring compliance with biological safety requirements at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, no emergencies were detected when working with pathogenic microorganisms. The conclusions of the commission were confirmed by an expert commission sent to the institute on behalf of the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova.
The Trump administration is demanding more information from Russia. CNN reports:
The US escalated its request for information, issuing a formal diplomatic communication, called a démarche, a source familiar told CNN late Tuesday.
“We have officially requested additional information from the Russian government,” a State Department spokesperson said. “We are also in official communication with other countries around the world to share information.”
“It’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier Tuesday. “Maybe it’s bigger than we thought. We don’t know, but I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate.”
US officials were in touch with the Russian government as early as last Friday, a State Department official said, including contact between the department’s health experts and the Russian Foreign Ministry. And that outreach has continued, an administration official said, as Rubio expressed hope Tuesday that the limited information sharing “will change in the next few hours and days.”
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