Preventive measures completed in Irkutsk Oblast after the death of an employee of the anti-plague research institute

According to Igor Kobzev, an expert commission from Rospotrebnadzor carried out a set of preventive measures and five thousand tests after the death of an employee of the anti-plague institute at the district hospital in Shelekhov. Everyone who had contact with her was under doctors’ observation for a week, and none of them became infected.

The governor repeated Rospotrebnadzor’s official version: the research institute employee died of community-acquired pneumonia, and there was no emergency situation at the institute. He also said that the employee had been vaccinated and had immunity to the dangerous infections she worked with.

Kobzev separately thanked the law enforcement bloc for “round-the-clock work under conditions of information pressure” and said that the quarantine had been lifted and the region had returned to its usual routine. Daria Shipilova died on the night of October 2 at the hospital in Shelekhov, a satellite city of Irkutsk.

In public discourse, a version was discussed that Shipilova allegedly broke a vial with the pathogen and fell ill with pneumonic plague, and then concealed it. Shipilova’s colleagues and independent experts doubt that such a scenario is possible; microbiologist Alisa Litovka said that in anti-plague laboratories the vials are plastic, and the work is carried out in a sealed box.

Amid reports of a possible plague outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was closely monitoring the situation. The incident was discussed at the White House in the United States, and in the United States it was also suggested that Moscow was deliberately hiding a catastrophe comparable to Chernobyl. On October 7, Donald Trump said he saw no danger and did not consider plague a biological weapon.

Sources

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