Questions Grow in Russia Over Lab Worker’s Suspected Plague Death

Anastasia Barashkova / REUTERS A Russian lab worker who is feared to have died of the plague had previously worked on a study testing antibiotics against the disease, it has been revealed.

Darya Shipilova, 28, died this month after falling ill with suspected severe pneumonia while working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.

Mystery still surrounds Shipilova’s fatal illness, with unconfirmed reports alleging that she broke a test tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples for testing at the research facility.

Russian authorities have said she died of pneumonia of “unknown” cause and downplayed suggestions that there is an outbreak of pneumonic plague in the area.

It has now been revealed that Shipilova co-authored research on Yersinia pestis, the bacterium found in fleas that caused the Black Death and the Plague of Justinian.

The study she worked on examined whether Yersinia pestis was susceptible to various antibacterial drugs and found that it was, Healthbeat reported.

The research was presented at the annual All-Russian Congress on Infectious Diseases on March 31 at the symposium “Natural Focal and Zoonotic Infections.” It is unclear if Shipilova was working on the sensitivity of Yersinia pestis to antibacterial drugs when she fell ill earlier this month.

While the Irkutsk facility she worked at has “plague” in the name, it also researched other dangerous pathogens, such as anthrax, cholera, and tularemia.

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s national public health agency responsible for infectious diseases, previously reported that testing on Shipilova’s body found “no microorganisms associated with the employee’s professional duties.” Russian officials took frantic precautions amid reports of a suspected plague death.

Nearly 200 people who came into contact with Shipilova were placed under observation, and several hospitals, including the one where Shipilova was treated, were placed under quarantine.

There has also been an outcry over claims that Russia has been trying to cover up a potential pneumonic plague outbreak in the surrounding areas.

“Something is not adding up about this situation,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, told The New York Times.

“You don’t quarantine 200 people for one plague case.

You don’t close multiple hospital units in response to one infection.” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is also demanding more answers from Russia amid reports that a second Irkutsk facility worker has contracted pneumonia.