On the evening of Friday October 2, Daria Shipilova, an employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, died in a district hospital in the Russian city of Shelekhov. Her place of work, and the rumored circumstances of her death, have triggered a public health emergency in the region and a slew of questions: did the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, kill Shipilova? Could this metastasize into a plague epidemic in Russia? Should we – abroad – be worried?
The Russian authorities have done their best to play down the link between the plague and Shipilova’s death. According to Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, Shipilova had been diagnosed with pneumonia of “unknown etiology” – i.e. of unknown origin. Irkutsk’s regional governor, Igor Kobzev, announced that a “particularly dangerous infection” had been identified, without specifying a particular diagnosis. Later, Kobzev took to social media to insist that the situation in the region was “stable” and that approximately 200 people who had recently interacted with Shipilova had been tracked down and were being monitored.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many questions remain unanswered about what killed Shipilova
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the authorities’ vague pronouncements on the incident, many questions remain unanswered about what killed Shipilova. Yersina pestis is, despite its medieval associations, still naturally occurring in Russia – although cases of human contraction are rare and can usually be treated quickly with antibiotics. Pneumonic plague is the most dangerous form of the disease: it can pass from person to person via respiratory particles, with symptoms appearing within 24 hours of infection. Incidentally, and somewhat eerily, the Irkutsk region is also where scientists hypothesize that plague first originated 5,000 years ago.
Shipilova had, according to some suggestions, recently conducted a study trip to the Mongolian border (where an outbreak of plague had been reported in August). Another rumor has suggested that Shipilova contracted the disease in Thailand – although given there have been no reported instances of the plague there, this theory doesn’t appear to have legs.
The leading theory as to how Shipilova may have contracted plague, if indeed that is what killed her, is, perhaps naturally, related to where she worked. Some reports have suggested that Shipilova may have broken a test tube containing the plague pathogen whilst working in her laboratory, contracting the disease that way. Nevertheless, some experts have subsequently pointed out that, given the expected nature of the personal protective equipment she would probably have been wearing to enter and work in the lab, infection in this way would seem very unlikely.
Adding to the confusion and growing alarm, Shelekhov city authorities first issued a warning advising against travel to the city, but this was deleted from social media just hours later. According to local media reports, five hospitals in the region have been placed under a three-week quarantine with doctors “openly talking about plague”. Ambulances transporting those who had been in contact with Shipilova for testing were, in some cases, reportedly accompanied by patrols from the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service. This has, among other things, prompted unsubstantiated rumors online that the lab Shipilova was working in was conducting classified government work, such as on a bio-weapon.
Rumors of the plague and the authorities’ lack of transparency are, unsurprisingly, causing unrest among locals. Antibiotics have reportedly sold out in pharmacies across the Irkutsk region, and people are stocking up on masks and hand sanitizer. Google searches for the word “чума”, meaning ‘plague’, have increased by approximately 2,800 percent in the week from September 29 to October 5.
Yesterday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov urged the Russian public not to “listen to rumors” and to instead follow advice from Rospotrebnadzor. But the authorities’ – frankly rather typical – obfuscation and evasive talk of “dangerous infections” and “unknown etioligies” has left a vacuum that has only too readily been filled with gossip and conspiracy. The public health body has since stated that “two cases of Covid-19 and two cases of rhinovirus infection have been identified” among those associated with Shipilova – but at this stage it’s hard to know how much of this is the Russian state whirring into gear in an attempt to manipulate the narrative or a genuinely truthful statement.
With memories of the Covid pandemic still fresh in global memory, the European Union and America’s White House have both said that they are monitoring the situation. President Trump has even offered help to Russia in containing the spread of any disease should they need it. The Kremlin’s track record, however, on communicating both with the Russian population and foreign governments in times of crisis suggests there is little hope of transparency should this public health crisis in Irkutsk escalate. Plague or not, pigs will fly before Vladimir Putin publicly accepts Trump’s help in containing the spread of any disease.
Comments