American health officials are on high alert following reports of a death in Russia that may be linked to pneumonic plague. The cause of death for the individual has yet to be officially confirmed by lab testing, but Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old lab technician, worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, an institute that, as the name implies, is dedicated to studying plague. The illness is highly fatal, with average fatality rates approaching 100%.
Pneumonic plague is also highly contagious and can spread from person to person via air droplets. That gives the disease a high potential for an epidemic spread or even a global pandemic, but health officials have cautioned we have a long way to go to get to that point. The plague is treatable with antibiotics, but must be caught early enough. Due to the potential severity here, approximately 200 people have also been placed under medical observation in Irkutsk, a region in eastern Siberia, and some hospitals have been placed under quarantine.
