Russia’s health regulator has dismissed rumors of a second person falling ill after the death of a lab worker at a plague research facility in Siberia. The regulator stated that there is “fake information circulating on social media about a second case of illness.” They confirmed that all contacts of the deceased woman were checked, and no health issues related to an infectious disease were found. Nearly 5,000 laboratory tests also showed no dangerous pathogens.
The 28-year-old lab employee, Daria Shipilova, passed away from pneumonia of unknown origin at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Russian authorities implemented precautionary anti-epidemic measures following her death. The World Health Organization initially assessed the public risk as low but expressed the need for more information from Russian authorities to make a comprehensive risk assessment.
Health Canada and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are monitoring the situation. Health Canada sees no risk to Canada currently, while the CDC director mentioned that the risk to the U.S. from an unconfirmed pneumonic plague case in Siberia is very low. The CDC has a port health station at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to screen travelers from the region. Flight connections between Russia and the U.S. have been halted since the beginning of the Ukraine war in 2022.