MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - Health authorities in Russia have denied that a lab technician in Siberia died of plague last week.
Dozens have been quarantined following the death of Russian lab technician Darya Shipilova last week due to suspected plague case.
The 28-year-old woman, who was working at an anti-plague research institute in the Siberian region of Irkutsk, died on October 2 after developing severe pneumonia.
She reportedly contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube and died at a hospital in Shelekhov.
The hospital was quarantined, and at least 197 people were put under observation. Several other local hospitals began enforcing a three-week quarantine, and public events in the city were cancelled.
Russian regulators told World Health Organization on Tuesday that there was no evidence pneumonic plague played a part in Shipilova's death and that no pathogens had been detected, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Further requests for information have been sent to Russian authorities, he added, noting that the lab is part of an institute in Irkutsk that studies dangerous pathogens, including plague, which occurs naturally in wild animals in the area.
When reports emerged last week of a possible pneumonic plague outbreak in Irkutsk, WHO immediately began monitoring and carrying out risk assessments.
Maria Van Kerkhove, who heads WHO's department of epidemic and pandemic threat management, said the health agency has reached out to Russia for details on lab results, tests and further analysis.
She said the request included further information regarding media reports of another suspicious pneumonia death in the region.
Acknowledging that the world has a 'heightened attention to risk' because of the 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic that killed more than 20 million people, Dr. Van Kerkhove said 'we want to put out fair, factual information and when we don't have an answer, we say so.'
Meanwhile, WHO has offered support to Russia and expects further answers from Moscow in the coming days, she said, emphasising that the agency will share new information as soon as it becomes available.
Cases of the deadly plague infection, which is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria usually found in small mammals and their fleas, are reported around the world every year, Dr. Van Kerkhove said.
Highly contagious pneumonic plague occurs when bacteria infect the lungs and it 'can trigger severe epidemics through person-to-person transmission via respiratory particles', according to WHO.
If left untreated, the disease can be fatal within 18 to 24 hours of its onset.
But common antibiotics for enterobacteria can effectively cure the disease if they are delivered early, the UN health agency said.
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