Health expert speaks out on 'pandemic risk' as 'Russian plague' hits third country

A world leading infectious disease expert has warned that Russian authorities are not being 'transparent' over plague fears as the virus continues to spread

A senior doctor and diseases expert has admitted that reports of a suspected Russian 'plague' outbreak have left him feeling 'uncertain' and shed light on the potential pandemic risk.

Fears of the mysterious virus spreading worldwide are growing after unconfirmed reports claimed Madagascar has become the third country to identify potential cases, after Russia and China.

American infectious-disease physician Dr Amesh Adalja, who is a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, accused Russia of having a 'history of concealment' when it comes to the spread of diseases, and admitted that it is "very unclear what happened" to deceased lab worker Darya Shipilova.

Concerns over a potential plague outbreak have grown since unconfirmed reports emerged that Shipilova, who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute, had died on October 2 after coming into contact with a mystery bacteria via a broken test tube.

While Russian officials have continuously denied this, her death was followed by a strict quarantine of around 200 people in the area, while multiple hospitals were also shut down in the region.

And according to Dr Adalja, things don't quite add up. Speaking to CBS, he admitted that while reports of plague were unlikely, it did feel as though Russia were not being totally transparent.

He explained that, whereas historically diseases like the plague have been untreatable and deadly, 21st century doctors are able to cure it with antibiotic treatment, meaning a massive lockdown response would not really be necessary.

He said: "The response doesn't fit plague. It's not congruent with plague. Plague is something, in the 21st century, that's treatable with antibiotics.”

However, in an interview with PolitiFact, he said: "Trained worker inside a plague research institute died of something still unexplained, and we’re relying on the word of a government with a documented history of concealment on biosecurity".

Despite feeling uneasy about the situation, Dr Adalja still believes the risk of a global plague pandemic is highly unlikely. He explained: "Pandemic potential shows up as a growing chain of human-to-human transmission, and that is not what we're seeing."

Earlier this week, Dr Adalja voiced similar concerns on CNN, and warned that Russia's lack of transparency posed a threat.

He said: "It's still to me very unclear what happened there, and that leaves us a lot of uncertainty." He then called on Russia release all "clinical details" relating to the death and any subsequent lockdowns, and to know "what did they test for."