In the Irkutsk Region of the Russian Federation, nearly 200 people were hospitalized on suspicion of plague

In the Irkutsk region, 189 people were hospitalized with suspected plague. According to a source at REN TV, all of them had been in contact with a young woman who died of the disease the day before. Some of those hospitalized were admitted to two hospitals, while another 12 people were sent to the Plague Institute for observation. Some of them are showing symptoms of the disease, but a plague infection has not yet been confirmed. Authorities are also identifying people who have recently been in contact with those hospitalized.

According to Mash, the victim of pneumonic plague was a 27-year-old employee of the Anti-Plague Institute. One theory is that she had returned from a work trip to Buryatia, where a natural plague focus had previously been recorded near the border with Mongolia. Another theory suggests that the woman may have accidentally broken a test tube containing the dangerous bacteria in the laboratory while collecting biological samples for diagnostic purposes. On September 29, she was admitted to the Shelekhov Hospital with symptoms of pneumonia and placed on a ventilator. However, she died two days later. Following this, the hospital staff were quarantined, and the hospital itself was placed under quarantine.

Igor Kobzev, governor of the Irkutsk Region, held an emergency meeting of the Sanitary and Anti-Epidemic Commission together with Anna Popova, head of Rospotrebnadzor. According to him, the meeting discussed information regarding a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection” in a resident of the region. “All identified close contacts have been placed under medical observation. As of today, they show no signs of illness, and their lab test results are negative,” Kobzev noted. At the same time, the authorities have not officially disclosed the specific diagnosis.

Plague is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The main forms of the disease are bubonic, pneumonic, and septic. Most often, people become infected through the bites of infected fleas that parasitize rodents. The pneumonic form of the plague can be transmitted from person to person via the respiratory tract.

The last recorded case of human plague in Russia occurred in 2016 in the Altai region. At that time, a 10-year-old boy fell ill after handling a marmot carcass and becoming infected through a break in his skin. Thanks to timely treatment, the child survived. Natural foci of plague persist in Mongolia. In 2023, Mongolia’s National Center for the Study of Zoonotic Infections identified 137 such foci in 17 regions of the country, including areas near the border with Russia.

This is reported by Russian propaganda media.

A study by the University of Tartu has identified recurring waves of plague in Estonia.

African swine fever was detected in Finland for the first time.

Two female tourists brought a dangerous disease from Zanzibar to Lviv.

Earlier, doctors in Lviv diagnosed a man who had returned from Uganda with tropical malaria.

The first case of hantavirus—a disease transmitted to humans by rats and other rodents—has been recorded in the Lviv region.