Russia Denies Second Plague Case as WHO Seeks Clarification
Al Jazeera Staff
The Kremlin has denied media reports of a second suspected pneumonic plague case in Siberia, saying most coverage is misinformation. The WHO is asking Russia for an official response, while US health officials say the risk to America remains extremely low.
The Kremlin on October 8 dismissed media reports of a second suspected case of pneumonic plague in Siberia, as the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Moscow to respond officially to the reports.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "most of what the media has reported about this situation is misinformation," when asked about the report concerning a second case. Peskov said information about suspected cases should come from official statements by Russia's health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.
The Russian health agency had previously said no infections were found among staff after an employee at a plague research institute died of pneumonia. The cause of that case has not been determined, fueling international concern that it could be linked to plague.
On October 5, Russia confirmed that a 28-year-old woman working at a plague research institute in Irkutsk, Siberia, had died after being diagnosed with "pneumonia of unknown cause," raising international alarm over a suspected plague case. The United States, the European Union and the WHO all called on Russia to be transparent about the situation.
WHO seeks more information
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on Russia to clarify "media reports of a second worker with pneumonia of unknown cause" at the Irkutsk institute. He said the WHO had received the information from two media outlets, one of them Russian, and had asked Russia to respond. "We cannot ignore any report," Tedros said at an October 8 news conference.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's director for epidemic and pandemic management, said the agency has not yet identified the "causative agent" in the first suspected case. "We don't understand how she became infected," she said, stressing the need for timely and regular information and answers to the questions the WHO has posed.
Low risk to the US
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assesses the risk to the United States from the suspected pneumonic plague case as "extremely low." CDC Director Erica Schwartz said the agency is working with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Defense and other agencies to monitor people traveling from the region. The CDC has a health station at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to screen passengers arriving from the Siberian region.
According to a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services, about 200 people travel from the Siberian region to the United States each year. Direct flights between Russia and the United States have been suspended since the war in Ukraine began in 2022.
"What we're doing on a whole-of-government basis is making sure we understand exactly what the threat is," Schwartz said at The Future of Health event hosted by The Wall Street Journal in Washington. In a separate statement, the CDC said there is currently no sign of a broader threat to the United States, but that it and its interagency partners remain prepared and are continuing to monitor the situation closely.
