Checklists, masks and mystery: What we know about the plague scare in Russia

Russian authorities have sought to allay global worries over the death of a young woman who worked at a Siberian anti-plague laboratory. But moves to isolate her contacts and introduce new disease-control measures at local hospitals have raised concerns among people who fear they’re not being told the full story.

The woman was a lab technician at Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia in Russia’s southeast. Questions have swirled around what illness she contracted and why Russian authorities have rushed to isolate her contacts, while downplaying the suggestion that she died of plague.

CNN has learned that a local maternity hospital is subjecting patients to comprehensive health checks and requiring them to fill out questionnaires about suspicious symptoms related to “plague” and other infectious diseases.

Ulyana Gavryunina, a 29-year-old blogger from Angarsk, a city in the Irkutsk region, told CNN she had to change maternity hospitals at 40 weeks pregnant after newly imposed quarantine restrictions meant her husband could no longer be with her during labor.

When she arrived for a scheduled appointment at the Irkutsk City Perinatal Center, her mother, who usually accompanied her during visits, was refused entry.

Staff checked her temperature, asked her to show her tongue and instructed her to wear a mask, sanitize her hands and complete two questionnaires. One of them was titled “Checklist for Suspected Highly Dangerous Infectious Disease Plague” and listed symptoms such as high fever and chest pain.

Staff did not mention plague, she said, telling her only that there was an unidentified “new virus” and that extra precautions were needed to protect the babies.

Inside the hospital, the atmosphere was calm, Gavryunina said. “Everything was as usual,” she told CNN. “Everyone was wearing masks, that’s all.”

Her biggest concern was being told her husband could no longer accompany her during labor, even if he underwent additional medical tests.

For other residents, the hospital restrictions have fueled questions about whether authorities are being transparent.

“It feels like they’re not telling us the whole story,” one person who self-identified as an Irkutsk resident commented beneath one of Gavryunina’s social media posts.

“They’re telling everyone that it wasn’t the plague but pneumonia. Yet hospitals are still under quarantine, and ambulance doctors are driving around in full Covid protective suits.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Russia to share more information after a 28-year-old laboratory technician at a Siberian institute dedicated to studying the plague and other infectious diseases died of pneumonia of “unknown” origin, prompting dozens of people to isolate.

Another local resident, who identified herself only as Ekaterina, said life there was continuing as normal.

She told CNN that while some of her acquaintances were “slightly panicking,” she had seen little change on the streets.

“Everything is as usual, no visible changes,” Ekaterina said.

But in local Telegram groups, many expressed skepticism. “Who are you telling these fairy tales to?” one user asked.

A lab worker, identified as 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, was hospitalized on September 29, according to independent regional news outlet Lyudi Baikala.

She is believed to have died at a hospital in Shelekhov, a town about 12 miles southwest of Irkutsk, at the end of last week. A friend of hers told CNN she died on October 2. The friend didn’t confirm any other details.

Unverified reports suggest she fell ill after a potential lab-leak or contracted the illness after traveling to another region.

Russia’s health and consumer watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said she died of a pneumonia of “unknown” origin. The agency downplayed suspicions that her illness was related to her work.

The first sign of a potential issue came on October 2, when Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev posted on Telegram that Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, had convened an “extraordinary meeting” about a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection” in a resident of the region.

Kobzev did not mention plague, but Alexey Tsydenov, the head of neighboring Buryatia, raised that possibility when he said in a statement that the woman “died of plague in the Irkutsk region.” According to Russian media reports, his statement was later edited to say that she had “possibly died from plague.”

We don’t know what the lab worker was suffering from, or how she contracted her illness, but the opaque Russian response has fueled speculation.

Russia’s health watchdog has reassured locals that the “epidemiological situation” is stable, but local media reported that 60 workers in the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute were in quarantine and a that number of hospitals were subject to restrictions

The Kremlin has urged people to rely on updates from the health watchdog rather than “various rumors and speculation.” When pressed for further information on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again referred journalists to the health watchdog, noting it “continues its work.” But the watchdog has released limited information.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday urged Russia to share more information about the circumstances of the researcher’s death.

“I think it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” he said. “Maybe it’s bigger than we thought. We don’t know, but I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate.”

The World Health Organization said it was in contact with Russian health authorities to “verify the event, its circumstances, the laboratory tests underway, and their results.”

“Based on unofficial information available, the public health risk to the general population appears to be low,” it said.

Despite such reassurances, several countries in the region have said they are monitoring and have put safeguard measures in place.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have implemented quarantine controls at state border crossing points. Uzbekistan said it has “increased the readiness” of authorities to deal with highly infectious diseases.

According to its website, the Anti-Plague Institute employs around 95 researchers and is a major public health facility responsible for monitoring and preventing outbreaks of high-risk bacterial and viral infections across Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

The institute was established in 1934 to combat plague and continues to study the disease because Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague, still circulates naturally in wildlife across parts of Siberia and neighboring regions.

俄罗斯当局试图平息国际社会对一名在西伯利亚抗鼠疫实验室工作的年轻女性死亡事件的担忧。但隔离其密切接触者并在当地医院实施新的疾病控制措施的做法，引发了部分民众的疑虑，他们担心自己并未被告知全部真相。

这名女子是俄罗斯东南部西伯利亚伊尔库茨克抗疫研究所的一名实验室技术员。人们纷纷猜测她究竟感染了什么疾病，以及为什么俄罗斯当局急于隔离她的密切接触者，同时又淡化她死于鼠疫的说法。

CNN获悉，当地一家妇产医院正在对患者进行全面的健康检查，并要求她们填写有关“鼠疫”和其他传染病相关可疑症状的问卷。

来自伊尔库茨克州安加尔斯克市的 29 岁博主乌利亚娜·加夫留尼娜告诉 CNN，由于新实施的隔离限制，她的丈夫无法在她分娩时陪伴在她身边，因此她在怀孕 40 周时不得不更换妇产医院。

当她按预约时间到达伊尔库茨克市围产期中心时，通常陪同她就诊的母亲却被拒绝入内。

工作人员给她测量了体温，要求她伸出舌头，并指示她戴上口罩、消毒双手，以及填写两份问卷。其中一份问卷的标题是“疑似高危传染病（鼠疫）检查清单”，列出了高烧和胸痛等症状。

她说，工作人员没有提到鼠疫，只告诉她有一种不明的“新病毒”，需要采取额外的预防措施来保护婴儿。

加夫留尼娜说，医院里气氛平静。“一切都和往常一样，”她告诉CNN，“每个人都戴着口罩，仅此而已。”

她最担心的是，即使丈夫接受额外的医学检查，她也被告知丈夫不能再陪她分娩了。

对于其他居民来说，医院的限制措施引发了人们对当局是否透明的质疑。

“感觉他们没有告诉我们全部真相，”一位自称是伊尔库茨克居民的人在加夫留尼娜的社交媒体帖子下评论道。

“他们告诉所有人，这不是瘟疫，而是肺炎。然而，医院仍然处于隔离状态，救护车医生穿着全套新冠防护服四处奔波。”

美国国务卿马可·卢比奥敦促俄罗斯分享更多信息。此前，西伯利亚一家专门研究鼠疫和其他传染病的研究所的一名 28 岁实验室技术员死于“不明”病因的肺炎，导致数十人被隔离。

另一位自称叶卡捷琳娜的当地居民表示，那里的生活一切如常。

她告诉 CNN，虽然她的一些熟人“略感恐慌”，但她在街上并没有看到什么变化。

“一切照旧，没有明显变化，”叶卡捷琳娜说。

但在当地的Telegram群组中，许多人对此表示怀疑。“你到底在跟谁讲这些童话故事？”一位用户问道。

据独立地区新闻媒体《柳迪·拜卡拉》报道，一名实验室工作人员，28岁的达里娅·希皮洛娃，于9月29日入院治疗。

据信她于上周末在谢列霍夫镇的一家医院去世，该镇位于伊尔库茨克西南约12英里处。她的一位朋友告诉CNN，她于10月2日去世。这位朋友没有透露其他细节。

未经证实的报道称，她可能是由于实验室泄漏而生病，或者是在前往其他地区旅行后感染了这种疾病。

俄罗斯联邦消费者权益保护和福利监督局（Rospotrebnadzor）表示，她死于一种“不明原因”的肺炎。该机构淡化了外界对其病情与工作有关的怀疑。

10 月 2 日，伊尔库茨克州州长伊戈尔·科布泽夫在 Telegram 上发帖称，俄罗斯联邦消费者权益保护和福利监督局局长安娜·波波娃召集了一次“特别会议”，讨论该地区一名居民疑似感染“特别危险的传染病”的病例，这预示着可能出现问题。

科布泽夫没有提及瘟疫，但邻近的布里亚特共和国领导人阿列克谢·齐杰诺夫在一份声明中提出了这种可能性，称这名妇女“死于伊尔库茨克地区的瘟疫”。据俄罗斯媒体报道，他的声明后来被修改为“她可能死于瘟疫”。

我们不知道这名实验室工作人员患了什么病，也不知道她是如何感染的，但俄罗斯含糊不清的回应加剧了人们的猜测。

俄罗斯卫生监管机构向当地民众保证“疫情形势稳定”，但当地媒体报道称，伊尔库茨克抗疫研究所的60名工作人员已被隔离，另有多家医院受到限制措施。

克里姆林宫敦促民众以卫生监管机构发布的信息为准，而非“各种谣言和猜测”。周二，当被追问更多信息时，克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫再次建议记者咨询卫生监管机构，并指出该机构“仍在继续工作”。但该监管机构发布的信息有限。

美国国务卿马可·卢比奥周二敦促俄罗斯分享更多关于该研究人员死亡情况的信息。

“我认为俄罗斯显然有义务与世界分享更多信息，”他说。“也许情况比我们想象的要严重。我们不知道，但鉴于我们目前掌握的信息有限，我认为现在妄加猜测是鲁莽的。”

世界卫生组织表示，他们正在与俄罗斯卫生部门联系，以“核实事件、事件情况、正在进行的实验室检测及其结果”。

“根据目前掌握的非官方信息，对普通民众的公共卫生风险似乎较低，”声明称。

尽管有这样的保证，但该地区的几个国家表示，他们正在密切关注事态发展，并已采取了保障措施。

哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯斯坦、乌兹别克斯坦和塔吉克斯坦已在国界口岸实施检疫措施。乌兹别克斯坦表示，已“提高”当局应对高传染性疾病的准备程度。

据其网站介绍，抗鼠疫研究所雇佣了约 95 名研究人员，是一家重要的公共卫生机构，负责监测和预防西伯利亚和俄罗斯远东地区高风险细菌和病毒感染的爆发。

该研究所成立于 1934 年，旨在对抗鼠疫，并继续研究这种疾病，因为引起鼠疫的细菌——鼠疫耶尔森菌——仍然在西伯利亚部分地区和邻近地区的野生动物中自然传播。