The border with Russia must be closed immediately and entry banned for Russian nationals to prevent the spread of the plague into Georgia. Georgia’s third president, Mikheil Saakashvili, made this statement from prison on his Facebook page, commenting on reports regarding the death of a laboratory technician at an anti-plague institute in Russia.
According to Saakashvili, the disease in question is a particularly dangerous form of the plague that is transmitted via airborne droplets.
“Kotsi [a derogatory term for representatives of the ruling Georgian Dream party], for once stop thinking about making money and crawling up the Russians’ asses—at least save your own lives.”
Earlier, media outlets reported that on October 2, 28-year-old laboratory technician Daria Shipilova of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute died of pneumonic plague at a district hospital in the Russian town of Shelekhov. According to one account of her infection, a test tube containing the infectious pathogen accidentally broke. Rospotrebnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) denied the reports, maintaining that Shipilova died of “pneumonia of undetermined etiology” and that no pathogens associated with her occupational duties were detected in her system. The agency also stressed that no safety incidents involving hazardous biomaterials had occurred at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute.
Several countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, have already stepped up sanitary border controls in the wake of reports concerning the death of the anti-plague institute employee in Russia.
