Prominent doctor wonders: ‘How worried should we be?’
How worried should we be about an epidemic of plague?
Details reported by Russia are sparse, but we do know this: A 28-year-old lab technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute experienced a laboratory exposure on September 25, was admitted to the hospital on September 29, and died of pneumonia on October 1. The dangerous organisms she was working with included varieties of plague bacteria (Yersinia pestis). About 200 people were initially quarantined and have been released. Five hospitals were placed under quarantine or access restrictions. The causative organism has not been isolated. There are reports of a second employee of the institute with pneumonia of undetermined cause.
Y. pestis persists in rodent populations, prominently in the Irkutsk region. Most human plague is bubonic (involving lymph nodes), acquired via flea bite. Pneumonic plague arises from inhalation of infectious droplets from close contact with infected mammals/humans. Most patients transmit to no one, but historic superspreading events have occurred with poor ventilation and crowding.
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