Russian lab worker dies after simple test tube mistake as fears grow of pneumonic plague outbreak

A woman working in a laboratory studying diseases in Russia has died after contracting pneumonic plague, local media has reported.

Daria Shipilova, 28, had been working as a technician at a lab which studies plagues and pathogens to better fight rare diseases is believed to have contracted the condition after an accident in the lab.

Shipilova is believed to have inadvertently smashed a test tube containing bacteria that can cause pneumonic plague, independent news outlet People of Baikal reported.

This is a condition which affects the lungs, and is one of three different forms of plague, with the other two being bubonic plague and septcaemic plague, with the bacterium itself being called 'Yersinia pestis'.

Shipilova was working in the lab, which is located in Siberia, and on 29 September was admitted into a hospital at the town of Shelekhov, which is located nearby, according to the Moscow Times.

Around 200 people are also believed to be subject to medical supervision and three hospitals have reportedly been placed on lockdown, the New York Post reports.

Reports have said that Shipilova may have broken a test tube containing the infection (Getty Stock)

While in hospital Shipilova was placed on a ventilator and reportedly showed signs of pneumonia, but died two after being admitted to the hospital.

Since then, some 189 people have reportedly been quarantined as authorities suspect that they may have come into contact with Shipilova, raising the possibility that they may have been infected with the bacterium.

Among them are other members of staff at the laboratory where Shipilova had been employed as a technician.

Now, regional government in the enormous region of Irkutsk, which is located north of Mongolia, have had an emergency meeting to address the potential outbreak as well as the 'particularly dangerous infection' at the laboratory, according to the governor of Irkutsk Igor Kobzev.

Kobzev added that at present there does not appear to be any other individuals who are currently showing signs of infection.

However, due to extreme government control and repression of the press in Russia more precise details of the outbreak are not clear.

Other staff at the lab may have been exposed (Getty Stock)

UK government guidance on plague was published by the UK Health Security Agency, and describes pneumonic plague as 'the rarest and also the most severe form of plague' out of the three types.

The guidance says that the disease can be contracted in several ways, including 'spread to the lungs from advanced bubonic plague', and adding that the more common means of infection is 'usually due to inhalation of infectious particles', and that 'person-to-person transmission is seen but the degree of contact needed is not clear'.

It goes on to describe some of the symptoms, including pneumonia, as well as sometimes producing 'bloody sputum'.

In a chilling description of the disease's mortality rates, the guidance says that when left untreated pneumonic plague is 'pneumonic plague'.

It adds that even when someone receives the proper medical treatment in good time that mortality is 'around 30 percent'.

The three types of plague are caused by the same bacterium, but the means of infection can change the precise type of plague.

Bubonic plague, the most common form, is infamously spread through the bites of infected fleas, including those carried by rodents.