WHO: Cause of Russian Lab Worker's Death Still Unconfirmed
The World Health Organization says Russia has not yet reported a confirmed cause of death for a researcher at the Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute. This uncertainty prevents an assessment of the risk or of Russia's response measures.
The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations health agency, published an outbreak report over the weekend on the death of a Russian infectious disease researcher earlier this month. The agency stresses that Russia has still not named a confirmed cause of death, so it cannot assess either the risk posed by the event or whether the measures Russia took were adequate to stop an unknown disease from spreading.
The WHO says it has so far seen no evidence of continuing transmission. Even so, it acknowledges that confidence in its assessment is limited by the lack of a confirmed etiological diagnosis and by uncertainty over the source and mode of exposure.
Sequence of events
The WHO learned of the death from media reports on October 2, then asked Russian authorities for information on October 3, 6, 7 and 8. Early reports indicated that the worker fell ill on September 29, possibly after an incident at the Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Media identified her as 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, and some early reports claimed she died of plague after breaking a test tube.
On October 2, the Irkutsk branch of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia's health oversight agency, said a special sanitary-epidemiological expert commission had already met over a suspected case involving a high-threat pathogen. Sanitary and epidemic control measures were introduced, including identifying, monitoring and testing all contacts. At that point the agency said all contacts had tested negative for high-threat pathogens.
On October 6, Russia's National Focal Point for the International Health Regulations responded to the WHO for the first time, stating that no plague case had been recorded in Irkutsk Oblast. It confirmed that the institute's worker died of severe pneumonia after developing symptoms consistent with an acute respiratory viral infection. She was tested for a number of high-threat pathogens, and all results were negative. Doctors classified the cause of death as pneumonia of undetermined etiology.
