The World Health Organisation said there was no evidence of ongoing transmission linked to the death of a laboratory worker in Russia who developed acute pneumonia before dying on 2 October, confirming that no other cases linked to the incident had been recorded so far. The organisation said Russia’s regulatory authority had informed it that tests on the deceased worker and everyone who had been in contact with her were negative for high-consequence pathogens.
It added that none of the contacts had developed symptoms and that the authorities had detected no additional cases linked to the acute pneumonia. Based on the information it had received, the organisation said it had found no evidence of ongoing transmission associated with the case.
The absence of a diagnosis leaves the incident without a confirmed explanation
But it said that the failure to reach a confirmed diagnosis in the deceased laboratory worker’s case remained one of the main uncertainties surrounding the incident. The worker fell ill and died on 2 October in undisclosed circumstances, prompting the Russian authorities to quarantine about 200 people. The incident raised public health concerns that spread widely across social media platforms.
The incident comes as health officials around the world remain on alert over fatal pneumonia cases of unknown cause, following the Covid-19 pandemic, which began with an outbreak of a rapidly spreading and fatal respiratory disease in China. Experts, however, say that determining the precise cause of most individual cases of pneumonia remains difficult.
The laboratory worker’s death therefore falls among cases whose causes may remain unknown even after medical investigations and tests have been carried out.
