US health officials are ‘aware of’ and ‘closely monitoring’ the suspected plague outbreak in Russia as reports emerge of a second death.
A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told the Daily Mail: ‘CDC is aware of and closely monitoring reports of a suspected case of pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region of Russia that resulted in a death.
‘We are working across the US government to assess developments as additional information becomes available.’
Agency officials said there was currently ‘no indication… of a broader threat’ to the US, but they were continually monitoring for updates.
Panic broke out last week when Darya Shipilova, 28, a lab worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia reportedly told medical staff that she had accidentally broken a test tube containing live bacteria.
Hundreds of people she came into contact with and five hospitals, including a maternity unit, were placed into quarantine. Shipilova was hospitalized and died from the infection on October 2.
Russian officials claim Shipilova died from an ‘unidentified pnuemonia’, but reports suggest she was infected with pneumonic plague caused by the ‘Black Death’ bacterium, which infamously killed millions in Europe during the Middle Ages.
Countries on the border with Russia, including Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are tightening border health controls over the situation.
A worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia is pictured conducting an anthrax-response drill in the region in an undated photo
Today, claims have emerged that a second person has died of the plague in Russia’s Irkutsk region, which have been attributed to local media.
Russian reports on the first plague case reported in Irkutsk have been disappearing across national media, including one from Moscow’s Channel 5 broadcaster. Independent Russian outlet The Insider said on October 2 the federal television channel REN TV also deleted all five of its publications about the plague in the Irkutsk region.
President Donald Trump has offered Russia help and said that the US government is looking at the outbreak ‘very strongly’.
But the Kremlin declined US help and instead offered to help America with its measles outbreak, which is now the worst in the country since 1991.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned that the disease could ‘quickly spread’, but said that there was no immediate cause for alarm. Speaking before flying to Iceland yesterday, he told reporters there was ‘very little’ travel between the US and Russia and that officials were ‘monitoring’ the situation closely.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, the CDC said: ‘At this time, there is no indication from available reporting of a broader threat to the United States, but CDC and our interagency partners are prepared and will continue to monitor the situation closely.’
The plague is a serious infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis that can cause swollen lymph nodes, particularly at the groin, armpit and neck, coughing up blood and bleeding under the skin.
Pneumonic plague is among the most severe forms of the disease that leaves patients bedridden within 24 hours after it attacks the lungs, causing them to fill with fluid and leaving someone struggling to breathe.
Pictured above are anti-plague experts at the Irkut Anti-Plague Institute in an undated photo
It is nearly always fatal unless someone is treated with antibiotics shortly after they have been infected.
Anyone can catch the plague, scientists say, which is a severe infection for all age groups.
It can spread from person-to-person if an infected person coughs or sneezes, expelling tiny droplets containing the bacteria, which can then be breathed in by another person, causing an infection.
The plague is endemic to Siberia, the location of the first known prehistoric human outbreak, as the bacterium that causes it is present among the small wild mammals in its vast wilderness and their fleas, which can also become infected and transmit the bacteria.
Cases are occasionally reported in the region, although it is generally rare for Russians to fall ill.
But in July, Mongolia’s National Center for Zoonotic Diseases (NCZD) confirmed a human plague case in Khovd province in the western part of the country. The center warned that 17 out of 21 provinces in the country were classified as plague-risk areas.
In the US, the CDC says that about seven cases of the plague are recorded every year, mostly in northern New Mexico and Arizona.
These are triggered because the bacteria that causes the disease is present in the small wild mammals in the region.
More than 80 percent of human cases in the US are triggered when the fleas on these animals bite them, becoming infected, and then bite a human, passing on the bacteria.
Globally, there are about 1,000 to 2,000 plague cases every year.
Many of these are in Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar, which records infections every year.
It isn’t clear how many die from the disease, but in bubonic plague – the most common type, caused by flea bites and which triggers swollen lymph nodes – about 30 to 60 percent of patients die if they are not treated early.
