White House Monitoring Reports Plague Case and Quarantine in Russia

The White House is monitoring reports of a suspected plague case in Russia and the quarantine measures introduced after a woman died in the country’s Irkutsk region, Axios reported on Oct. 5, citing a White House official. The official said the Trump administration was “aware” of the situation and was “evaluating options.” The White House declined to provide further details and referred questions to the State Department, which did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Russian authorities said a 27-year-old employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute was hospitalized on Sept. 29 with symptoms of severe pneumonia. She died during the night of Oct. 1-2. Russian media reported that she had contracted pneumonic plague, although authorities have not publicly confirmed that diagnosis. One version reported by Russian media said the woman had recently returned from a work trip to Buryatia, where a plague outbreak had been detected near the border with Mongolia. Another theory suggested she may have accidentally broken a test tube containing the plague bacterium at a laboratory. Russia’s consumer protection watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, rejected the laboratory accident theory, saying no emergency involving pathogenic microorganisms had been recorded. Hospital quarantined, 189 people hospitalized The Shelekhov hospital where the woman died was placed under quarantine. Authorities identified 189 people who had been in contact with her and hospitalized them for observation. Other Topics of Interest Guterres’s Successor Will Need Russia’s Blessing Guterres secured humanitarian agreements but leaves deep distrust in Ukraine. The candidates to replace him face scrutiny over their own approaches to Moscow. Irkutsk Region Governor Igor Kobzev said on Oct. 2 that none of the hospitalized people showed signs of the disease and that laboratory tests had returned negative. The following morning, authorities in the nearby city of Baikalsk urged residents to temporarily avoid traveling to Shelekhov and neighboring settlements because of the reported plague death. The warning was later deleted. What is plague? Plague is a serious infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It has several forms, including bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic plague. People most commonly contract plague through bites from infected fleas carried by rodents. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs and can spread between people through respiratory droplets. Unlike bubonic plague, it can therefore spread directly from person to person. The disease can be treated with antibiotics if detected early. Without treatment, however, pneumonic plague can be rapidly fatal. Russia’s last recorded case was in 2016 Russia’s last officially recorded human case of plague was reported in 2016 in the nearby Altai region. A 10-year-old boy contracted the disease after skinning a marmot and developing an infection through damaged skin. He survived after receiving timely medical treatment. The reported case in Irkutsk has not been publicly confirmed as plague by Russian health authorities, leaving the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death unclear. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 97% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.