Up next in 10
Shelagh Fogarty is joined by microbiologist Dr Sarah Pitt to discuss the Russian 'plague outbreak' after a lab worker died following exposure.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it was seeking further information on the Russian case but reassured the public about possible spread.
Trump is also set to speak to President Putin and he told reporters that the US is looking "very strongly" at the case.
Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
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0:00
Donald Trump has said he will be speaking to Vladimir Putin about the deaths of two people now
0:05
from the plague, deemed to be, but we don't know a great deal, a lab accident. And the World Health
0:11
Organization has called for transparency from Russia about exactly what happened. Well, let's
0:18
go back to basics and discuss what a plague, the plague actually is. Dr. Sarah Pitt joins me
0:23
microbiologist based at the University of Brighton and the president of the Institute of Biomedical
0:28
Science. Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon. Now, a lot of people, myself included
0:34
during the height of the pandemic, did sometimes say, oh my God, I didn't realise I'd be living
0:39
through a plague. Is it a plague or is the plague a particular illness all of its own
0:47
Yes. So the plague is a particular illness all of its own, as you say. And here in Northern Europe
0:53
we think about it as the Black Death, and it is that, so bubonic plague
0:57
I think it's quite important for your listeners to realise, if they don't know already
1:03
that there's at least 3,000 cases of it across the world, you know, every year still
1:09
It's mostly found in Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Madagascar
1:15
there's an outbreak in Madagascar, and also Peru. So those are the main countries where we see cases
1:20
But there also we find few number of cases across the world all the time
1:24
But it is it is the plague that we would think about from history
1:30
And it still makes me sort of, you know, shudder to think about when you think of your schoolgirl history lessons and all of that and the horror of it
1:39
What causes it? Where does it come from? So it normally naturally lives in particular types of rodents
1:46
so um and normally it goes from the rodent to the person via the bite of an insect so typically a
1:54
flea or something like that um and so it normally what happens is it's a person gets the disease
2:01
they get um the uh sort of you know signs of fever and infection and then the swollen glands so the
2:07
swollen nodules in your glands which is the what we call the bubonic signs but then sometimes people And so that normally that stops at that point But sometimes people can develop the bacterium itself can get into the bloodstream and then sometimes it gets to the lungs
2:23
And if it gets to the lungs, then we have a different form of the same. It's the same organism, the same bacteria, but it's a different form of disease called the pneumonic plague
2:31
That then becomes a lung infection and you can then pass it from to other people through coughing and so on
2:37
so that then is is that's what normally starts an outbreak is one person has it in their lungs
2:43
and they can spread it to other people that's interesting because when you were talking about the flea bite sort of method of carriage i was thinking oh good it's not person to person
2:51
and then you then on you went to pneumonic plague answering that question so it can very much be
2:56
person to person it can although that's a rarer occurrence but once it gets into the person's lungs
3:03
then that they can therefore obviously infect a lot more people. The other thing to bear in mind though is that unlike something like COVID
3:11
it's not a brand new organism, we've known about it for thousands of years the bacterium itself which is called Yersinia pestis
3:18
your listeners might be interested in that name was actually discovered in 1890
3:24
so we've known about the bacterium for more than 100 years and it can be treated with standard antibiotics
3:30
the the difficulty is that you have to get the treatment really very quickly so within 24 hours
3:35
or so of becoming ill you need to get the antibiotics but in that case if that does
3:40
happen then the person is usually recovers it the people who are dying from it all around the world
3:46
just because they didn't get treatment in time so in in the term in terms of controlling an outbreak
3:51
which your listeners might be thinking about we would be able to give antibiotics to anybody who
3:56
might be at risk as much as we did. Yes, very standard antibiotics. That's interesting. And good
4:04
That's good. Yes. And I was going to ask you, and again, you've half answered it with what you just
4:08
said there, but you mentioned DRC, Madagascar, Peru as typical places where there have been
4:14
outbreaks. Is that where we have learned that these antibiotics are effective? And what else
4:19
have we learned from those outbreaks? Or do we learn perhaps every year from those outbreaks
4:23
about containment? Yes, I think, yes, we've learned that those antibiotics are effective
4:29
And we also learned how quickly you need to get the treatment in order for them you know in order to stop the spread of the infection and also to treat the individual patients And we also learned how to deal with the infection generally
4:45
So one of the things is to avoid contact with rodents and or, you know, trying trying to avoid flea bites and trying to avoid handling rodents if they're in their in their particular area
5:01
And also just monitoring people closely and taking care of them and keeping an eye on anyone who might have been at risk
5:09
The normal standard things that we always do when we have an outbreak of infectious disease
5:14
So in this case, what we don't know very much about what's happening in Russia, but what has been reported is that up to 200 people who've been in close contact with the people who the two people have very sadly died are in quarantine
5:27
It's sort of in a lockdown, but that's because they're being monitored and they will be given that I suspect that they will be probably being given antibiotics already, but they'll certainly be looking out to see if they start to get ill
5:38
And that question of speed of care, is that to avoid bubonic becoming pneumonic, essentially
5:45
Yes, yes, because that's what's happened. And of course, in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, they've already got civil war, they've got Ebola, they've got Marburg
5:55
Then, you know, that's probably why people are not getting the treatment that they need
5:59
What's Marburg? Sorry. Oh, it's another virus, which is a bit similar to Ebola, but they've got outbreaks of that one as well
6:05
God, it's horrible. And again, and I'm no scientist, it won't surprise you to hear Dr. Sarah Pitt, but it is extraordinary, isn't it
6:13
We think of, you know, we talk about the threat from Russia, the threat from Iran and they're real things, you know, in wars that we've seen in history
6:20
But my God, these microbes can bring us to our knees, can't they
6:24
They really can. And I do worry sometimes that we become a little bit complacent because we've got antibiotics, because we've got vaccines
6:32
we sort of think that infectious diseases are not something we should be worrying about
6:36
but i think if for the last few years have taught us anything it's that we do and we should um take
6:41
care of ourselves and each other and take notice if the of the advice we're given about trying to
6:47
control infectious diseases um just because you know we should in an idea oh hang on we got a really practical question here from a caller a listener a texter i just found i have mice in my house right i
7:00
was thinking about this when you said keep away from rodents um i have mice in my house should i
7:04
be worried that's from john no because there is very particular types of rodent and we don't find
7:11
we don't find the disease or the particular type of rodents that were you needed in northern europe
7:17
anymore. Oh, good. Yeah, it's not as bad news as everybody's fearing, I don't think
7:24
Does that include South West Ireland? Just asking for a friend. As far as I know
7:29
Good. And I was going to ask you as well that, you know, Donald Trump will speak to Vladimir
7:35
Putin about it. The World Health Organization wants full transparency from Russia. In an ideal
7:40
world, what would Russia be communicating to us now? In an ideal world, they'll tell us exactly what happened. It is from from my point of view as a diagnostic laboratory microbiologist, it does seem quite hard to understand how there was a laboratory accident and that the person who was potentially infected by that laboratory accident wasn't closely monitored and given treatment herself
8:05
herself you know that that's kind of a strange thing and normally people would only be working
8:11
in those special um containment labs those special research labs if they'd had specialist training
8:16
and um you know only usually only authorized people are allowed to work on that particular
8:22
area so it would be useful to know what really did actually happen was it a laboratory accident or
8:28
was it was it um did i think there's some reports that they that the the poor um the person might
8:34
have caught it before you know outside of work um we still haven't got to the bottom of wuhan have
8:40
we so i wonder and but the other thing is because i've mentioned we've got outbreaks in madagascar
8:45
and the drc we have teams of expert the who could offer teams of could offer expertise to help the
8:52
people in russia to deal with this outbreak if there is one and because because we've got you
8:57
know they've got people who are currently working on current outbreaks who can have can advise them
9:01
Well, I think you've reassured me as well as terrify me a little bit
9:06
Thank you very much indeed, Dr. Sarah Pitt, microbiologist based at the University of Brighton
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