The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was coordinating with other federal agencies to monitor travelers arriving from Siberia amid questions about a possible pneumonic plague case in Russia. CDC Director Erica Schwartz characterized the risk to Americans as extremely low in remarks at a Wall Street Journal health forum on Wednesday; the source does not specify the forum’s calendar date.
The concern followed the Oct. 2 death of Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee of a research institute in Irkutsk. Russian authorities have said she died from pneumonia of unknown origin. They have not confirmed that she had pneumonic plague, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Schwartz said the CDC was working with the departments of Homeland Security, State and War, among other agencies, to identify potential arrivals from the region. She cited roughly 200 flights from Siberia and said a CDC port health station at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport could conduct surveillance and screening when appropriate.
The CDC director also said pneumonic plague is treatable with antibiotics, while warning that it can be serious and spread through respiratory droplets. The agency says prompt treatment is important.
The source reports that the World Health Organization has sought more information from Moscow. It also cites reports that about 200 people who had contact with Shipilova were quarantined, and that roughly 5,000 laboratory tests detected no pathogens. Those figures and developments are attributed to outside reporting in the source material; the cause of Shipilova’s illness remains unconfirmed.
