The death of a laboratory worker at a Russian research institute that studies plague has sparked fears of a possible infection, but experts say there is currently no evidence of a wider outbreak. The worker, identified by Russian media as 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia. She died on 2 October after developing severe pneumonia of unknown cause.
Neither plague nor the reported laboratory accident has been independently confirmed as the cause of the worker’s death, according to ScienceAlert. Reports of a possible laboratory accident, including claims that a test tube containing plague bacteria was broken, have circulated online. Russian health authorities have rejected a link between her illness and pathogens handled at the institute. Investigators would need to establish what was inside the container, where the incident happened and whether infectious material could have reached the worker. However, that outbreak involved a different pathogen, facility and historical situation, and provides no evidence that the current incident in Irkutsk is linked to a laboratory release.
The case has drawn comparisons with earlier laboratory incidents, including a major anthrax outbreak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk in 1979.
Zania Stamataki, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham, told ScienceAlert that a breakage in a high-containment laboratory would be treated as an incident, but not automatically as an exposure.
