Russia has formally told the World Health Organization that there are no confirmed plague cases in Siberia, even as quarantine measures remain in place and questions continue over what killed a young employee of one of the country’s principal plague research institutes.
Russian authorities submitted the assurance to WHO on Tuesday after the UN health agency sought information about the death of 28-year-old laboratory worker Darya Shipilova at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.
“No case of this dangerous disease has been recorded in the city of Irkutsk,” Russian authorities said in their official response, according to WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier.
Moscow also told WHO that people who had been in contact with Shipilova had been identified and tested negative for dangerous infectious pathogens.
But one major question remains unresolved publicly.
Reuters said it could not establish whether Russia’s statement meant Shipilova herself had been definitively tested for plague or whether authorities were able to completely rule out plague as the cause of her death.
Russia’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately answer a request for clarification.
Shipilova died on October 2 after rapidly developing severe pneumonia.
She worked at a specialist institute that researches plague and other highly dangerous infectious diseases.
Russian authorities maintain that she died from pneumonia of unknown origin and say investigators found no accident involving dangerous pathogens at her workplace.
Reports circulated in Russian media and online alleging that she may have been exposed to Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, during laboratory work. Those claims remain unconfirmed, and Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has denied that such a laboratory accident occurred.
The scale of the precautionary response, however, has continued to fuel questions.
Around 200 people were initially quarantined after Shipilova’s death, including dozens of staff from the anti-plague institute.
A local official said Tuesday that approximately 60 percent of those initially quarantined had now been released and that what she described as a “dangerous diagnosis” had not been confirmed.
Independent Russian reporting has documented restrictions at hospitals across Irkutsk and neighbouring Shelekhov.
Patients and relatives have described limits on movement and visits, while the Irkutsk Perinatal Center began restricting access and screening pregnant women using a questionnaire specifically labelled for suspected plague.
The form asked patients about fever, respiratory symptoms, contact with sick people and recent exposure to travellers.
Staff at the centre reportedly told patients the measures were precautionary because authorities had not yet fully established what infection they were dealing with.
Residents of Shipilova’s apartment building also told independent outlet People of Baikal that teams in protective equipment repeatedly disinfected the building following her death.
The same investigation reported that residents rushed to pharmacies to buy antibiotics after rumours of pneumonic plague spread through the region, while government-linked media outlets and municipal authorities removed or altered several early reports referring to plague.
WHO currently assesses the wider public-health risk as low.
Plague can be successfully treated with antibiotics when diagnosed early, and health specialists say pneumonic plague generally requires close contact for person-to-person transmission.
No secondary plague infections connected to Shipilova have been confirmed.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have nevertheless strengthened precautionary health controls following the incident.
The latest WHO communication therefore reduces concerns that a broader outbreak is under way.
It does not, however, fully resolve the original mystery.
Russian authorities say there is no plague in Irkutsk, contacts have tested negative and the epidemiological situation is stable.
What has still not been publicly established in detail is exactly what pathogen — if any — caused a 28-year-old employee of a plague laboratory to develop fatal pneumonia, or whether plague itself has been conclusively ruled out in her death.
