Over 5,500 tests found no dangerous pathogens, Russia’s health agency says

On 8 October, Rospotrebnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing) reported that over 5,500 tests found no dangerous pathogens. Its previous statement cited nearly 5,000.

The agency listed bacteriological, biological, mass-spectrometric and molecular-genetic methods. Five agency organisations participated, including three research institutions. Individual results and a breakdown by method were unattached.

A subsequent statement reported information sent to WHO (World Health Organization, a United Nations agency) and 14 countries that requested it. The countries were unnamed. It thanked offers of help and called for renewed cooperation discontinued with some countries over ten years ago.

Rospotrebnadzor called its information complete and relayed WHO’s assessment as no sanitary-emergency risk. In a late-found statement dated 6 October, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus relayed Russia’s report of completed observation but sought the pneumonia’s cause and clarification of media reports about a second employee. A new direct WHO response to the evening statement has not been verified.

Interfax attached no laboratory protocols, country requests or replies. These statements add no published laboratory confirmation of plague.

Wire publication: 8 October 18:46 and 19:13 UTC+3 (Coordinated Universal Time; Moscow); Irkutsk 23:46 and 9 October 00:13. Modified fields 18:44 and 19:06 precede publication; reason unestablished. Exact agency statement times unknown. Sources added 8 October in Coordinated Universal Time.