A suspected pneumonic plague outbreak has erupted in Russia, after a 28-year-old lab worker working at Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute died after being exposed to a live plague bacteria, as per The Moscow Times. She reportedly broke a test tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples for a test, leading to immediate exposure.
She was taken to a hospital in Shelekhov with symptoms of severe pneumonia and was placed on a ventilator, where she succumbed to the infection after a few days. The Putin government did not confirm the cause of the death; however, the country’s consumer welfare service did say that a lab worker died of ‘pneumonia of unknown etiology.’
