Darya Shipilova is said to have been exposed to the pathogen while working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia
Hundreds of people have been placed into quarantine in Siberia after a laboratory worker died of suspected plague, according to reports.
Darya Shipilova, an employee at the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, was exposed to the bacteria after she accidentally broke a test tube containing the pathogen while she was collecting samples, the Kyiv Independent reported.
She was hospitalised on 29 September with severe pneumonia of "unknown origin” and placed on a ventilator, but died shortly after.
Independent Russian outlet Lyudi Baikal reported that several hospitals in the city of Irkutsk had closed for a three-week quarantine.
It could be antibiotics-resistant strain, and that can occur naturally pretty easily. Russian healthcare system likes to prescribe antibiotics for anything and everything, so probability of her being on some prolonged course that allowed for a super-plague to develop naturally is not zero.
Which, frankly speaking, will be so much worse. At this point, I hope it’s a bioweapon.
Weren’t they pioneering phage research back in the old USSR days…?
Yeah, well, you know how it is…