A laboratory worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia, Russia, has died just days after falling ill with an undisclosed illness.

While reports of suspected plague have been circulating in the media, Russia’s consumer health watchdog has described the illness as pneumonia of unknown cause. The World Health Organization also stated the official cause of death has not yet been confirmed. Plague therefore remains only a possible explanation.

While this is a tragic death and an important investigation, it’s certainly not a reason to panic or sign that the Black Death has returned. The availability of treatment, rapid testing and contact tracing mean the outlook of plague is very different today.

Why is plague suspected?

It’s currently not clear what the laboratory technician’s cause of death was. But as the research institute where she worked studies plague bacteria, health authorities are right to consider plague as a potential cause of illness.

The illness that she experienced – a form of pneumonia that ended in her death just a few days of contracting it – also resembles symptoms of pneumonic plague.

This form infects the lungs, usually after bacteria are inhaled and the illness can progress within a day or two. Symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath and often blood-stained sputum (mucus that is coughed up from the lungs).

But many other infections that cause pneumonia can look similar. Only laboratory tests can tell them apart. Health authorities routinely classify plague cases as suspected,........

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