The risk of the international spread of plague, including to Latvia, is considered very low even if the suspected case in Russia is laboratory-confirmed, according to Latvia’s Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (SPKC).
The SPKC issued the information following media reports of a possible case of pneumonic plague in Russia’s Irkutsk region. The Moscow Times and Meduza reported that nearly 200 people had been hospitalised for observation after coming into contact with a patient who had allegedly died from pneumonic plague.
The SPKC stresses that reports of a death potentially linked to pneumonic plague and the introduction of large-scale quarantine measures have not yet been officially confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) or the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The centre explains that today, timely diagnosis, patient isolation, monitoring of contacts and effective antibiotic treatment make it possible to successfully contain the spread of plague and prevent larger outbreaks.
The SPKC is continuously monitoring information about the suspected plague case in Russia,
as well as other potential public health threats of international significance, so that risks can be assessed promptly and appropriate infectious disease prevention and control measures can be organised if necessary.
According to the SPKC, plague is no longer a global problem on the scale it was historically. However, the disease has not been eradicated and natural reservoirs of the infection still exist.
According to WHO data cited by the SPKC, six countries in two WHO regions reported laboratory-confirmed human cases of plague between 2019 and 2025.
In the African Region, these were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Madagascar and Uganda, while in the Western Pacific Region cases were reported in China and Mongolia.
Together, these six countries accounted for 3,847 of the 3,860 suspected plague cases reported worldwide.