US CDC Monitoring Possible Plague Case in Russia

U.S. officials are tracking a possible plague case in Russia, they confirmed on Oct. 5.

“CDC is monitoring the situation closely with the State Department and our other interagency partners,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The safety and security of U.S. citizens is our highest priority,” the spokesperson added.

Russia’s consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor reported over the weekend that a worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East in southeastern Siberia was diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” according to the Interfax news agency.

The institute, established in 1934 to work on plague control, has 95 scientific employees, including 13 doctors, according to its website. Its mission includes protecting against epidemics, including epidemics of plague.

Testing on the patient showed no microorganisms linked to the person’s job, and no infectious diseases were reported among institute employees in the past 10 days, Rospotrebnadzor said.

Testing among people who had been in contact showed two COVID-19 cases and two cases of rhinovirus.

“For this case, the parent agency, which is competent in this field, is Rospotrebnadzor,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, told a briefing on Oct. 5.

“One should namely be guided by the official statements of Rospotrebnadzor, not listening to various rumors, speculations and so on. There is Rospotrebnadzor where high professionals of the field work. Let’s listen to their official statements.”

Plague is a disease caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. It is typically spread through bites from infected rodent fleas, although pneumonic plague can spread from person to person. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, and bloody mucus, and cases can sometimes result in death.

Alexei Tsydenov, an official in a neighboring region, wrote in an Oct. 2 post on Telegram that the worker died, “possibly from plague.” He cited federal and local officials.

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev said in a post on Telegram the same day that all identified people who have been in contact with the affected person are under medical supervision, have shown no signs of illness, and tested negative for the disease.

The Irkutsk Aluminum Plant in Shelekhov was mandating masks as a precaution, its director wrote in a post on Telegram at the weekend.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Maryland on Monday that U.S. officials received information from Russia that indicates a lab worker was infected.

“There’s concern that [it] could have spread, at least internally; you’ve seen them do quarantine of this and that nature,” he said.

“There’s very limited travel between the U.S. and Russia, obviously. But like anything else, if something like that gets out, it can quickly spread. So we’re watching and monitoring it closely. I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and the cause to just keep an eye on it, and we’re doing that.”

A U.S. State Department spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email that the United States is aware of reports of “a fatal case of suspected pneumonic plague” in Irkutsk and is monitoring the situation closely with the CDC and other interagency partners.

Aldgra Fredly contributed to this report.