WHO wants more details from Russia on suspected pneumonic plague case

GENEVA (AP) — A top official with the World Health Organization said Wednesday it doesn’t know how a lab worker in Siberia died, and she urged Russia to provide more information about a case that prompted global concerns about suspected pneumonic plague.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO director of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, said the UN health agency doesn’t know what the “causative agent’ was behind the woman’s October 2 death, which unconfirmed reports in Russia blamed on pneumonic plague — a less common but severe form of plague that can spread from person to person.

In its tersely worded statements, Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, does not link the case to pneumonic plague, saying only that the lab worker had contracted pneumonia of “unknown” origin and that “extensive” testing found no evidence her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.