White House on High Alert and ‘Assessing Options’ as Plague Breaks out in Russia with Hundreds put into Quarantine Hospitals
By JACK TOLEDO
The White House is monitoring a plague outbreak in Russia after a lab technician died and hundreds of people she came into contact with were placed in quarantine.
An official with the Trump administration told Axios on Sunday that the administration is ‘aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options.’
Darya Shipilova, 28, was reportedly working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Siberia when she was exposed to pneumonic plague.
Shipilova told medical staff she had accidentally broken a test tube holding live bacteria, according to news outlet Lyudi Baikala.
She then became unwell while on a field expedition with colleagues in Buryatia, beside Russia’s eastern border with Mongolia.
Shipilova was admitted to hospital on September 29 and placed on a ventilator but died two days later.
She came into contact with roughly 200 people, who are now being monitored over fears of an outbreak.
Three hospitals in the region have been placed under secure measures, as a mask mandate has been put in place.
Lab worker Darya Shipilova, 28, died in Siberia of pneumonic plague after allegedly breaking a test tube
Health officials have been pictured in the Irkutsk region wearing hazmat suits amid the plague response, as a mask mandate has also been put in place
Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev said that those being monitored had not shown signs of illness and had tested negative for the disease, according to The Moscow Times.
The hospital where Shipilova was treated is among the medical facilities placed under quarantine. The others have taken in those who came into contact with Shipilova.
Pneumonic plague causes a severe lung infection, with symptoms including fever, shortness of breath and coughing up blood, which typically begin to show between three and seven days after contact.
Fatalities from pneumonic plague drop to around 17 percent if treated with antibiotics within the first 24 hours of infection.
However, the disease is almost always fatal if left untreated.
There have also been claims that Russian authorities are attempting to hide exactly what happened.
Reports claim that drugs used to treat the disease are running out in the region, leaving terrified residents piling into pharmacies and medical facilities demanding supplies.
The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute was founded in 1934
An official with the Trump administration told Axios on Sunday that the administration is ‘aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options’
Mikhail Favorov, a senior Russian epidemiologist, dismissed the broken test tube explanation, according to the Moscow Times.
Favorov said: ‘It’s laughable. Someone working at the Anti-Plague Institute in Irkutsk wears a protective anti-plague suit.
‘If you break a test tube, the likelihood of infection is actually very low. In short, it doesn’t matter to the general public – they’ll believe the “broken test tube” story.’
He added: ‘It’s absolutely hair-raising. We will not be told what really happened.’
Pneumonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
It is transferred as a result of breathing in airborne droplets from another person.
Septicaemic plague causes a blood infection as a result of flea bites or handling infected animals. Symptoms include internal bleeding and tissue turning black due to necrosis.
The third is the bubonic plague – also known as the Black Death and notoriously responsible for the Great Plague of 1665, which killed at least a third of the population of Europe at the time.
It is also caused by flea bites and causes fever, chills and painful, swollen lymph nodes known as buboes.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House, State Department, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for comment.
Original Source: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16182665/white-house-plague-russia-quarantine.html
