Chinese health authorities reported one death from the plague but didn’t disclose any further details, following the death last month of a worker at Russia’s far-east anti-plague institute.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) reported the plague death on Oct. 29 in its national report for infectious diseases for September. The plague case was one of eight cases recorded for Class A infectious diseases, which is the most contagious category. The other seven cases were of cholera, and the only death from Class A infectious diseases in September resulted from the plague case.
However, in the official report, the China CDC did not provide any details regarding the death from plague, such as the type of plague, the specific time, and the location of the case.
The one plague death in China was reported after the death of a young researcher at an anti-plague institute in Siberia in early October. Russian authorities said the researcher died of pneumonia of unknown origin and said there was no evidence her illness stemmed from pathogens she worked with. So far, Russian authorities haven’t released any specific information about her cause of death, despite being urged to do so by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old laboratory worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East that is close to the Mongolian border, was hospitalized with severe pneumonia on Sept. 29 and died on Oct. 2, causing global concerns of a possible pneumonic plague outbreak.
Russian authorities told the WHO that they placed approximately 200 contacts under quarantine, which was lifted on Oct. 8.
Soon after Shipilova’s death, Russia’s neighboring countries—including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Mongolia—stepped up quarantine measures and testing to prevent a potential outbreak from spreading to their territories. Hong Kong and Macau have also implemented stricter screening measures for Russian arrivals at their entry points. However, the Chinese regime hasn’t announced any screening measures at the long borders that China and Russia share.
The Russian lab worker’s sudden death and the lack of transparency of both the Russian and Chinese regimes have caused public concern in China.
Later in October, The Epoch Times reported that a regional China CDC staff member in Chengdu said that information about possible plague cases would be confidential and “considered an official secret,” in response to questions about claims of cases occurring in China circulating on social media after the suspected Russian plague case.
Sun Jingyang, a resident of the Shuangliu District in Chengdu close to Chongqing in southwestern China who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 16 that he visited the fever clinic at the Shuangliu Second People’s Hospital on Oct. 11. A doctor at the hospital told him that an individual who had returned to Shuangliu from Russia had fallen ill and subsequently died and that “the case might be related to the plague.”
Dr. Feng, who works in China’s disease prevention and control sector and gave only his last name out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that “the plague has already been spreading in some parts of China” and that “the possibility of a pandemic is high.”
Although the panic caused by the sudden Russian case is fading, Dr. Feng added, “the new danger [of plague] might come soon.”
Notably, in late August, China and Russia conducted a joint four-day emergency drill near the China–Russia border in Fuyuan, Heilongjiang Province, China.
The drill simulated the response to infectious disease outbreaks, especially imported plague.
Sergey Balakhonov, director of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute, also participated in the drill.
The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute has been working with various Chinese institutions on related research for many years.
Beijing-based scholar Yang Ming told The Epoch Times that both China and Russia are authoritarian states and have a tendency to conceal information when dealing with unexpected crises—a pattern notably seen in China during the 2003 SARS outbreak and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
Tang Bing and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
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