Deja Vu : from Wuhan, China to Siberia, Russia

"Who [World Health Organization] has requested further information to clarify the cause of the severe pneumonia."

"Media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause [is troubling]." 

"[Risk for the region considered] moderate to low [but lacking information to conduct a] full risk assessment."

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

A security person wearing a face mask looks out from the door of an infectious diseases hospital in the town of Shelekhov, where an employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute recently died, a mysterious fatality that has caused international concern. (Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP/Getty Images)

 

"Comprehensive preventive and anti-epidemic measures [have been implemented at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Irkutsk]."

"[There are no] epidemic risks to the population of Irkutsk and the Irkutsk Region."

"[Close to 5,000 tests were conducted, none revealing the presence of dangerous pathogens; the situation in Irkutsk region remains] stable." 

Rospotrebnadzor, Russian public health agency 

When curious cases of pneumonia began to show up in Wuhan, China, in 2019, local doctors were puzzled and concerned. They were muzzled by authorities who cautioned them to say nothing, facing penalties beyond mere censure if they leaked information out to a curious world. Beijing assured the World Health Organization that this was merely a local issue, and nothing to be concerned about. When it became obvious that the fast-spreading disease, later named as SARS-CoV-2 posed a potential large-scale threat, China was outraged at the world reaction to close borders, terming it 'racist'.

 

Travellers from the region arriving on foreign shores predictably carried the pathogen with them and it took no time at all for a pandemic to threaten world health. Russian authorities appear to be following a similar pattern of denial and reluctance to provide critical information to the WHO, which in short order assured the world that everything was under control and there was nothing concerning. The infection,      attributed to infection from live animals at the Huanan wholesale seafood market that spread like wildfire was later suspected to have originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in a case of a runaway virus.

 

With luck, this will not be repeated. The source of the infection that caused the death of a young plague laboratory worker last week will prove to be an accident, swiftly brought under control. In the brief time leading to that hoped-for conclusion, Moscow's secretive feints at stilling suspicion of a breakout plague virus does not instill confidence. Pneumonia of an "undetermined" cause is the Russian attribution but it has failed to satisfy the need-to-know of the WHO, the U.S. and the European Union, clamouring for more revelations.

 

Photograph: Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute via AP

 

The Russian news outlet People of Baikal, revealed that 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, an employee at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, died from a suspected case of pneumonic plague which she may have contracted from a broken test tube. Speculation at this point, nothing conclusive. That it is infectious is beyond denial. And Ms. Shipilova had contact with an estimated 200 people, now under quarantine. With a second lab employee now dead -- which Russia denies -- should others swiftly follow, the world will have ample reason for suspense.

 

According to a local mayor, a local hospital has been placed under quarantine, obviously to care for the 200 individuals identified as potential risks for infection. A half-million people live in eastern Russia, and Shelekhov, where the first lab employee died, is a satellite town to the west of Irkutsk, itself a remote Siberian city. The Yersinia pestis bacterium is the cause of pneunomic plague. Swift treatment with antibiotics can avert death; if not treated an an early stage, it progresses fatally.

 

Reassuringly, the Irkutsk regional governor, Igor Kobzev, stated that Rospotrebnadzor's early inspection found that the death of the young lab worker had been caused by a pneumonia of "undetermined" origin. Concisely he said: "No micro-organisms linked to the young woman's professional work were found in her biological samples", and no other institute staff members had required medical attention following her death. Tellingly, plague is endemic to Siberia.

 

The World Health Organization is investigating reports of a second infection linked to an anti-plague institute in Siberia. This comes after the death of a researcher from the same laboratory earlier this month, which studies pneumonic plague.  AP

 

"The sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region … is calm."

"[Authorities are completing a] complex of prophylactic measures and medical observation over contacts."

"So far they have found two cases of COVID-19 and two of rhinovirus."

Rospotrebnadzor public health agency, Russia