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Researcher At Russian Plague Laboratory Dies of 'Unknown' Infection (axios.com) 68

Posted by EditorDavid from the like-the-plague dept.
"Russian health authorities have taken precautionary measures in response to the death of a woman who worked at an anti-plague research facility," reports Axios, "but have not confirmed that she contracted plague." On Sept. 25, 28-year-old Daria Shipilova, who worked at an anti-plague research institute in Russia's Irkutsk region, broke a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen, local reports said. Shipilova was admitted to a hospital on Sept. 29 with symptoms of severe pneumonia and died overnight between Oct. 1 and Oct. 2. After her death, authorities imposed quarantines at several medical facilities in the region and placed nearly 200 people who had come into contact with Shipilova under medical observation. Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev said those being monitored showed no signs of illness and had tested negative... Russia's public health agency said Shipilova had "pneumonia of unknown etiology" and that further testing found no microorganisms linked to her work. The agency said the epidemiological situation in the region remains stable.

Plague is a potentially life-threatening bacterial disease but can be cured with antibiotics when treated promptly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CNN reports that according to Russian state media agency TASS, it remains unclear exactly what was released: The head of the neighboring republic of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, said earlier that the employee — a 28-year old woman — died "possibly from the plague." He also noted that "there are no plague outbreaks" in Buryatia. The governor of Irkutsk, Igor Kobzev, urged calm on Friday, saying that an extraordinary meeting of the regional anti-epidemic commission was held with Russia's chief state doctor. The meeting was in connection with a "suspected case of a particularly dangerous infection affecting a resident of the region," Kobzev said on Telegram.... The infection in the Irkutsk region is "most likely not the plague, but even if confirmed, there will be no spread of this disease," a previous head of Rospotrebnadzor, Gennady Onishchenko, said on Friday. Onishchenko told the state news agency TASS that the onset of cold weather would likely prevent transmission.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

Researcher At Russian Plague Laboratory Dies of 'Unknown' Infection More | Reply

Researcher At Russian Plague Laboratory Dies of 'Unknown' Infection

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  • That they have a whole laboratory for this? Interesting.

    • Re:Plague is a problem in Russia? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Sunday October 04, 2026 @10:08PM (#66363080)
      Plague is endemic in rodents in a number of places. It is probably native to the Russian parts of eastern Asia, but it is present in ground squirrels in the western US as well. Fortunately, it is usually easily curable with standard antibiotics when humans contract it, which they do. In Russian Asia, which is sparsely populated and poor, it could be a significant problem. An antibiotic-resistant plague, which given the tendency of bacteria to develop resistance is not impossible, would potentially be a disaster of major proportions.

      • Re:Plague is a problem in Russia? (Score:5, Informative)

        by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Sunday October 04, 2026 @10:16PM (#66363086)

        Also don't most of the rodent->human infections result in bubonic plague? The malady mentioned in the summary was said to be pneumonic plague, which is the same bacteria but much much worse.

      • We're all the descendents of the people who for whatever genetic reason survived the plagues in the past and thats why plaque hasn't reoccured as an epidemic since the middle ages. Even before antibiotics were created it was no longer AS dangerous to us as a species. though thats not to say its still not dangerous, just not to epidemic level.

        • We sincerely hope.
        • nothing to do with genetics. It was a population shift from Black to Brown rats, sanitation, isolation and general cleanliness. The Plague is still as deadly today as it was 700 years ago, except now we can easily treat it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Viol8 ( 599362 )

            What a load of crap. The black rat is still endemic around the world and if you think there was good sanitation in georgian or early victorian times then you need a history lesson particularly in cholera.

        • We're all the descendents of the people who for whatever genetic reason survived the plagues in the past and thats why plaque hasn't reoccured as an epidemic since the middle ages.

          Except - that was our (mostly) ancestors acquiring a degree of immunity to a strain of the bacterium circulating 250 and more years ago.

          It's fairly unlikely that current wild-type strains are the same strain.

          Bacteria do evolve in the wild, you know. (Everything evolves in the wild.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      We have bubonic plague infections every year in the United States. Very, very few, admittedly, but it's not like it's been eradicated. So there's still benefit in studying it.

    • Re:Plague is a problem in Russia? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Monday October 05, 2026 @03:46AM (#66363318)

      The Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute of Siberia and Far East https://irknipchi.ru/ [irknipchi.ru] was founded in 1934, when Plague was an important problem. IT could be thy have shifted their main focus while keeping their name. According to this long blog post about the current incident https://alexwasburne.substack.... [substack.com] , in the 1970s the USSR secretly repurposed certain academic facilities with production of bioweapons, a programme called Biopreparat Plague was one the potential bioweapons. This particular institute is not on the list collected by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I am NOT speculating that the recent incident is connected to bioweapons; I am speculating that former bioweapons programmes might have helped the "Plague Institute" to survive one century while the importance of the plague infection has decreased.

    • Re:Plague is a problem in Russia? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Monday October 05, 2026 @05:55AM (#66363380)

      My guess is this is a front for bioweapon research.

    • It's still active in the area where that lab was if you did your homework. Even wikipedia makes note of it.

  • She was doing important but dangerous work with the goal of helping people and improving their lives*, and a lab accident ended up taking hers. Thank you, Ms. Shipilova, for the work you did.

    *I know it's Russia, but will generously assume that

    • The rumors circling around claim that she was working with a flask with plague bacteria, accidentally broke it and then hid this and even when she was sick enough to go to a hospital, she kept hiding it until shortly before she died. If that is true, then her own stupidity took her life, not the lab accident itself.

    • But did she follow protocol after exposure or just shrug it off and expose a bunch of other people? Pneumonic plague is easily treatable if antibiotics are taken right away.

  • Something is not completely adding up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pesho ( 843750 ) on Sunday October 04, 2026 @11:14PM (#66363146)
    Plague these days is very treatable with antibiotics. Progression to pneumonic plague requires either inhalation of aerosols or very advanced disease without treatment. I am not sure how any of that happens from a broken tube at an institution that should have at least rudimentary safety protocol (I know this is Russia, but even they know to seek treatment when exposed to plague). If antibiotics were administered, it means that the bug was resistant. Unfortunately there is no reliable reporting on the case. All the news stories are based on social media posts. More information on Moscow TImes [themoscowtimes.com] and Meduza [meduza.io].

    • Yes, and this statement:

      Russia's public health agency said Shipilova had "pneumonia of unknown etiology" and that further testing found no microorganisms linked to her work.

      Which I assume was meant to be reassuring, is the exact opposite. It tells me that it is very probable that whatever was actually in the test tube is something they don't even have the ability to test for or identify.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jabuzz ( 182671 )

      Bear in mind that the Soviet Union weaponized pneumonic plague, creating stains with multi-antibiotic resistance and increased environmental stability.

    • You will expect someone who works with plague bacteria / by products to be aware that it can be cured with fast medical assistance. Yet she was exposed on 25th Sept and waited(?) till the 29th Sept to go to a hospital??

      I will also assume labs working with plague will have the relevant meds / antibiotics on hand to immediately take action if there is a exposure event.

    • They were intentionally studying ways to weaponize the plague. Russia has extensive bioweapon labs.
      (to be ready to defend against it when someone else released their weaponized version of the pneumonic plague.... purely defensive research, of course -pinky swear!)

      COVID19
      PLAGUE26

  • She got it from... (Score:3)

    by devloop ( 983641 ) on Monday October 05, 2026 @12:30AM (#66363212)
    Irkutsk's wet market.

  • Classic Russian reversal, but this time two way: In Soviet Russia, you kill plague. Also: in Soviet Russia, plague kills you.

  • If your doctrine is batter civilians into submission with artillery, a plague, engineered to target genetic markers in the ethnicity you don't like would be far more efficient. Or just take out fighting age males, make them sick enough to be combat ineffective.

    There would be collateral damage, infections leak and mutate, it would be a horrendous, evil strategy, likely to backfire, unless you gamble developing a vaccine in parallel and a quarantine plan, or just don't mind sacrificing a few civilians.

    Mother

    • I'm not sure targeting specific ethnicities would work well at all (ye olde genetic bottleneck means all humans are fairly inbred compared to other mammals), although I am at times surprised no one has tried and accidentally collapsed civilization, yet.
  • Well at least it wasn't radioactive this time.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by davidwr ( 791652 )

      It probably was radioactive, just not harmfully so.

      Speaking of radioactive things, I have this shipment of bananas....

  • So.... Russia has bio labs?

  • Great (Score:2)

    by HnT ( 306652 )

    So RuSSia has a possibly antibiotics-resistant pneumonic plague at their disposal. Isnt that great news?

  • Pretty sure whatever he died from came from bats. Or hamsters.

    There's no reason to leap to the conclusion that whatever killed him was because he was actually working directly on it. That would be irresponsible.

    • Pretty sure whatever he died from came from bats. Or hamsters

      1. 'She', not 'he', AIUI. I can assure you from personal experience that anatomically Russians are indistinguishable in all important respects from other humans.
      2. Or more likely marnosets. The commonest vector for plague in this region is the mamoset. I'm not even sure hamsters are found within several thousands km of this area.
      3. The disease has a long history in this area. A recent article : "Lethal plague outbreaks in Lake Baikal hunter-gatherers 5,5

  • Because 90% of this story line is exactly the same as resident evil.

    • and just like resident evil 90% of the story is false. She didn't break a test tube in a lab, she was returning from a field trip when she got ill and tested negative for the plague. What she died of exactly is unknown at this point. Really the only reason this is in the news is because of where she worked, if her job was elsewhere this would barely make the local news.
  • To stock up on tp and N95. Panic now. Avoid the rush.

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