The CDC has implemented measures to identify and assess travelers from the Russian region where a woman may have died from pneumonic plague, ABC News reported Oct. 8.
The agency said about 200 travelers from that region come to the U.S. each year, and enter the country through airports where CDC staff are already positioned. Currently, no do-not-board orders are in place.
CDC Director Erica Schwartz, MD, said the threat to the U.S. is “extremely low,” and that the agency is “well positioned to make sure that we are protected from a potential threat.”
“We are working with Department of Homeland Security, working [with] Department of State, Department of War and other agencies within the government to make sure that we know exactly if anyone from that area comes into the United States,” Dr. Schwartz said Oct. 6 at the The Wall Street Journal’s The Future of Health event in Washington, D.C.
The World Health Organization said it does not have enough information from Russian authorities to conduct a full risk assessment of the death. Russian officials told WHO that there was no recently reported case of plague in the region, and that about 200 contacts had been placed in quarantine.
The incident occurred at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia. A 28-year-old female lab technician was diagnosed with pneumonia of “unknown” origin, according to Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s infectious disease agency. Initial reports indicated the illness could have been caused by Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
The cause of death has not been confirmed, and Russian officials now say the woman died of pneumonia unrelated to her work.
