“People think the plague is gone, it was something that occurred 500 years ago. It’s not.” A worker at a Siberian research institute died of pneumonia recently, prompting a quarantine and raising alarm in Russia over the potential spread of pneumonic plague.
Russian authorities report testing showed no evidence of the bacteria. Public health experts emphasize that the ancient disease remains endemic in wild rodent populations worldwide.
The rare bacterial infection famously responsible for the 14th-century Black Death never actually disappeared from the planet. Despite modern antibiotics making the condition easily treatable when caught early, health agencies track human cases nearly every year across multiple continents.
Between 2019 and 2025, global surveillance figures showed that 10 countries reported suspected human plague cases to the World Health Organization, resulting in 3847 suspected cases and 423 deaths across six countries with confirmed cases, yielding a case fatality rate of 11%. Most infections since the 1990s concentrate in Africa, with Congo and Madagascar reporting the highest numbers according to the World Health Organization.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records an average of about seven human cases annually within the United States, predominantly in rural regions of the American West.
Quarantine Imposed at the Irkutsk Research Institute
Recent concern centers on the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and Far East, where a staff member died of pneumonia. Unconfirmed media reports initially suggested the worker might have succumbed to pneumonic plague, triggering apprehension across Russia.
Russian authorities say testing showed no evidence of plague, though officials placed the research facility under a quarantine as a precaution.
People in Siberia have suffered from the plague for at least 5,500 years, with the earliest physical evidence discovered in teeth from ancient hunter-gatherers living north of Lake Baikal.
People think the plague is gone, it was something that occurred 500 years ago. It’s not.
Simon Clarke, University of Reading in the U.K.
Clarke added that eliminating the bacterial reservoir in nature is practically impossible. Unless you get rid of those wild animals, which of course is not possible, then you’re not going to get rid of the bacteria,
he noted regarding rodent populations such as prairie dogs and rats that carry Yersinia pestis
.
Transmission and Symptoms Across Plague Variants
The same bacterium causes multiple forms of the disease. The bacteria spread naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats.
Other than bites from infected fleas, people can also get plague by touching infected bodily fluids, leading health experts to recommend taking extra care when handling dead or sick animals.
Left untreated, bubonic infections can advance and turn into the other two forms of plague, and both pneumonic and septicemic forms are fatal if not treated early according to the World Health Organization. Pneumonic plague can also be contracted by spreading through the respiratory droplets of someone who has pneumonic plague.
“If you cough, you can spread it to another person, but that doesn’t travel very far,”
Dr. Glenn Wortmann, MedStar Washington Hospital Center
“So you really need to be in face-to-face contact with that person to get pneumonic plague.”
Dr. Glenn Wortmann, MedStar Washington Hospital Center
Because transmission requires such close face-to-face contact, the chance of this spreading widely in Russia and then extending to the U.S. will not happen.
Early Antibiotic Treatment Cures the Plague
Medical advancements over the centuries mean that modern intervention can successfully cure the infection. When treated early with antibiotics, the plague can be cured, and the key is to get to a doctor fast or else the condition can be deadly.
Preventative options remain narrow. Unless you get rid of those wild animals, which of course is not possible, then you’re not going to get rid of the bacteria,
said Clarke.