A leading American infectious-disease physician has cast doubt on Russia's handling of a suspected plague outbreak, citing a 'history of concealment' as unconfirmed reports suggest the disease has reached a third country.
Dr Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, said the situation leaves him feeling 'uncertain' about the potential pandemic risk. His comments come after unconfirmed reports claimed Madagascar has become the third country to identify potential cases, following Russia and China.
Mystery Death of Lab Worker
Concerns have grown since reports emerged that Darya Shipilova, a laboratory assistant at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia, died on October 2 after coming into contact with a mystery bacteria via a broken test tube. Russian officials have continuously denied that her death was plague-related, but a strict quarantine of around 200 people was imposed in the area, and multiple hospitals were shut down in the region.
Speaking to CBS, Dr Adalja admitted that while reports of plague were unlikely, it felt as though Russia were not being totally transparent. He explained that, whereas historically diseases like the plague have been untreatable and deadly, 21st century doctors are able to cure it with antibiotic treatment, meaning a massive lockdown response would not really be necessary.
Response 'Doesn't Fit Plague'
He said: "The response doesn't fit plague. It's not congruent with plague. Plague is something, in the 21st century, that's treatable with antibiotics."
However, in an interview with PolitiFact, he said: "Trained worker inside a plague research institute died of something still unexplained, and we’re relying on the word of a government with a documented history of concealment on biosecurity."
Pandemic Risk Considered Unlikely
Despite feeling uneasy about the situation, Dr Adalja still believes the risk of a global plague pandemic is highly unlikely. He explained: "Pandemic potential shows up as a growing chain of human-to-human transmission, and that is not what we're seeing."
Earlier this week, Dr Adalja voiced similar concerns on CNN, and warned that Russia's lack of transparency posed a threat. He said: "It's still to me very unclear what happened there, and that leaves us a lot of uncertainty." He then called on Russia to release all "clinical details" relating to the death and any subsequent lockdowns, and to know "what did they test for."
