A former CDC chief has voiced concern that the suspected plague infection reported in Russia may involve a laboratory-altered strain rather than naturally occurring bacteria.
Dr Robert Redfield, who headed the agency during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, discussed the case on NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Reports. “My concern goes beyond the woman who became ill,” he said, pointing instead to the scale of the official response.
Redfield noted that pneumonic plague is exceptionally uncommon and can become fatal within a day, yet it does not typically pass easily between people. He said Russian authorities had responded forcefully by shutting five hospitals and placing more than 200 individuals in isolation.
“That is not how I would expect a case of pneumonic plague to be handled,” he said, adding that the response made him question whether the infection involved a naturally occurring, or “wild-type,” strain.
Redfield also said it would be unusual for a laboratory worker to die from wild-type plague, the term used for an unmodified form of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for the disease.
“If she was working in a plague laboratory and there had been an accident, established procedures would normally have required antibiotics within 24 hours of exposure,” he said. “She would probably have responded well to that treatment.”
He suggested that a strain engineered to resist standard antibiotics could offer another explanation. Redfield referred to past Russian biological weapons research, saying that changes to an organism’s antibiotic susceptibility “might explain why treatment did not work.”
International concern grew last week after reports identified the patient as Darya Shipilova, 28, a worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia. She was reportedly said to have accidentally shattered a test tube containing live bacteria linked to pneumonic plague.
According to reports, more than 200 people who may have been in contact with her were quarantined. Five hospitals in the area, including a maternity facility, were also reportedly closed or placed under restrictions.
Dr Robert Redfield, who led the CDC during the opening phase of the Covid pandemic, has questioned whether a manipulated plague strain may be involved in the Russian case
Workers are shown at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East in an undated image
Russian officials have said Shipilova died from “unidentified pneumonia.” They have also reported that some of her colleagues tested positive for Covid-19 or were suffering from the common cold.
However, accounts from regional media and comments attributed to local officials have fueled speculation that she had pneumonic plague. The illness is caused by Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium associated with the Black Death that killed millions across medieval Europe.
So far, no evidence has confirmed that Shipilova was infected with a genetically manipulated form of plague.
Siberia Realities, the Siberian service of the US-funded broadcaster Radio Liberty, reported that Shipilova was admitted to hospital on September 29. Doctors initially believed she had severe Covid-19 and placed her on a ventilator. She died three days later, on October 2.
It remains unknown whether she was given antibiotics, which can be highly effective against plague when treatment begins promptly.
Russian epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov told Echo FM, a Berlin-based station regarded as one of the country’s few remaining independent radio outlets, that doctors may have misdiagnosed the illness. He noted that no plague case had reportedly been recorded in the region for at least ten years.
The circumstances surrounding Shipilova’s illness are also disputed, with different reports offering conflicting accounts.
Some local outlets have claimed she was exposed after breaking a test tube at the research facility. But the Russian Telegram channel Mash reported a different version, saying she became ill after returning from a work trip to Buryatia, a neighboring region located near Irkutsk and the institute.
Panic broke out last week when Darya Shipilova, 28, a lab worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia, reportedly told medical staff that she had accidentally broken a test tube containing live bacteria
Health officials pictured in the Irkutsk region wearing hazmat suits during the plague response, with a mask mandate also put in place
Local media has since claimed that a second person has died of the plague in the Irkutsk region, but this has not been confirmed by the authorities.
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Speaking today, US President Donald Trump, following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has said he is confident that the case was not caused by a manipulated strain of the plague.
He told reporters at the White House: ‘We don’t think so. We’re going to find out.’
He added that Russian officials had assured him the situation was ‘very much under control’ but that they were ‘not saying much.’
Speaking at the WSJ health summit in Washington DC today, CDC director Erica Schwartz said she was ‘very confident’ that the threat to the US from the suspected plague outbreak was ‘extremely low.’
Amid fears that the suspected outbreak could spread, some countries along Russia’s border have started to tighten health controls for new entrants.
Yesterday, the US Embassy in Moscow renewed its advice not to travel to the country, saying in a statement posted online: ‘The State Department’s Level 4 Travel Advisory (Do Not Travel) for Russia remains in place and states US citizens currently in Russia should depart immediately.
‘US citizens planning travel to Russia are again strongly advised not to travel to Russia due to risk of wrongful detention and security concerns.’
Internationally, the World Health Organization and other health bodies have appealed to Russia for more information about the suspected plague case.
The Irkutsk facility at the center of the reported fatality sits within a much broader Soviet-era scientific infrastructure that has links to military research.
During the 1970s and 1980s, reports suggest that Soviet scientists studied natural strains of the plague at the research center that could have military uses.
Dr Ken Alibek, a top researcher in Russia’s germ-warfare machine before defecting to the US in 1992, told the Daily Mail that the Soviet Union was previously working to create antibiotic-resistant versions of the plague bacterium for a potential bioweapon.
‘If amongst people who are quarantining, you’ll see more people dying, it can be antibiotic resistant,’ Alibek said.
Plague can take several forms, but its most dangerous is pneumonic plague, which infects the lungs and causes them to fill with blood and fluid, leaving someone struggling to breathe.
Without early treatment, it is nearly always fatal.
Symptoms erupt within a day of infection and doctors warn that the bacteria can be spread from person to person via respiratory transmission.
But scientists say it is rare for it to spread between people. The CDC says sustained face-to-face contact with an infected person is needed for it to spread through the air.
Dr Robert Redfield is pictured left on NewsNation warning over the suspected plague outbreak. In the center is presenter Jesse Weber and on the right is former White House official Dr Raj Panjabi
The infection is also normally easily treated using antibiotics, although these need to be administered early to ensure they are effective.
About 1,000 to 2,000 cases of plague are recorded globally each year, which can also be spread by fleas and by handling the carcasses of wild animals that have been infected with the bacterium that causes the disease.
It is not clear how many of these patients die from the disease.
In Russia, cases have previously been reported in its Far East where the Yersinia pestis pathogen is endemic.
In July, Mongolia’s National Center for Zoonotic Diseases (NCZD) confirmed a human plague case in Khovd province in the western part of the country. The center warned that 17 out of 21 provinces in the country were classified as plague-risk areas.
In the US, the CDC says that about seven cases of the plague are recorded every year, mostly in northern New Mexico and Arizona where the ‘Black Death’ bacterium infects small mammals. It is not clear how many of these cases are fatal.