r/ContagionCuriosity

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is monitoring reports of a suspected pneumonic plague case in Russia and says it is prepared for any threat that emerges.

We are working across the U.S. government to assess developments as additional information becomes available," the CDC said in an X post Tuesday.

"At this time, there is no indication of a broader threat to the United States, but CDC and our interagency partners are prepared and will continue to monitor the situation closely."

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Other Updates:

Beacon Report: Russia reports anti-plague institute researcher died from pneumonia of unknown etiology, unrelated to lab work; WHO comments on situation.

> The World Health Organization (WHO) reported on 06 Oct 2026 that it is closely monitoring the death of a laboratory worker in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, amid unconfirmed reports that pneumonic plague may have caused her death.

> WHO received information on the situation on 2 Oct 2026 and formally sought information from Russian authorities on 03 Oct 2026 under the International Health Regulations.

> Per Russian authorities, test results to date have not identified any dangerous pathogens in the deceased patient or any of her contacts.

> On 06 Oct 2026, unverified media reports are claiming that there is a second death in a contact. As of the time of this report, the quality of these reports is assessed as unreliable.

> The scale and speed of the institutional response (emergency commission, isolation of institute staff, multi-hospital quarantine), is disproportionate to a routine community-acquired pneumonia and is consistent with a precautionary response to a suspected high-consequence pathogen exposure.

> The absence of reported secondary cases to date is the strongest indicator of containment, but the lack of transparency regarding the unresolved etiology sustain moderate residual uncertainty.

CNN: Checklists, masks and mystery: What we know about the plague scare in Russia

> CNN has learned that a local maternity hospital is subjecting patients to comprehensive health checks and requiring them to fill out questionnaires about suspicious symptoms related to “plague” and other infectious diseases. [...]

> Staff did not mention plague, she said, telling her only that there was an unidentified “new virus” and that extra precautions were needed to protect the babies.

> “They’re telling everyone that it wasn’t the plague but pneumonia. Yet hospitals are still under quarantine, and ambulance doctors are driving around in full Covid protective suits.”

> Another local resident, who identified herself only as Ekaterina, said life there was continuing as normal. [...]

> Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have implemented quarantine controls at state border crossing points. Uzbekistan said it has “increased the readiness” of authorities to deal with highly infectious diseases.

> The World Health Organization said it was in contact with Russian health authorities to “verify the event, its circumstances, the laboratory tests underway, and their results.” “Based on unofficial information available, the public health risk to the general population appears to be low,” it said.

A seldom seen but often deadly mold that attacks people’s brains seems to be causing more trouble as of late.

Scientists at the University of Washington and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied lab-confirmed reports of the fungus Cladophialophora bantiana. There has been a noticeable increase in detected cases over the past decade, the researchers found, particularly since 2023. Though these infections still appear to be rare, there is very little we clearly understand about the fungus, the researchers say, including how prevalent it truly is or even how it infects people in the first place.

“Reasons for the apparent increase are unknown,” the authors wrote in their paper, published late last week in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Human fungal infections are relatively uncommon compared to bacterial and viral ones, and brain infections are much rarer still. These life-threatening infections tend to be disseminated, meaning the fungi only invade the brain (and other parts of the body) after an initial infection elsewhere. Brain and other severe fungal infections also predominantly occur in people with already weakened immune systems.

C. bantiana is a strange, moldy exception to these rules. When inside the human body, it seems to prefer infecting the brain, typically causing abscesses (pockets of pus containing the fungus, the immune cells trying to fight it off, and other tissues). C. bantiana is also highly deadly when it causes illness, with a mortality rate ranging between 60% and 70% even with treatment. And it’s not picky about its victims either, according to study author Joshua Lieberman.

“It is capable of infecting apparently healthy people, not just immunocompromised patients in whom we normally worry about invasive fungal disease,” Lieberman, a microbiologist and associate professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at UW, told Gizmodo. Roughly half of infections are found in people with healthy immune systems, according to the authors.

The one saving grace is that cases are rarely documented in the U.S. That said, there is no routine national surveillance of C. bantiana, and doctors are not obligated to report suspected or confirmed cases to their health departments. [...]

Kenya has confirmed its first imported case of Ebola (Bundibugyo) virus disease after a Kenyan citizen who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for seven years died while receiving treatment in Nairobi.

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale today said the patient had fallen ill about a month ago while in the DRC, where he was treated at several health facilities before travelling by road from the DRC to Kampala and subsequently flying to Nairobi.

“The patient arrived in Nairobi aboard Jambo Jet flight 8523 and underwent routine public health screening at the port health and immigration desks at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA),” the CS said during a presser at Afya house today.

He explained that the citizen was later taken directly from the airport to a Nairobi hospital by a relative and a friend, where he was isolated after presenting with fever, chills, intense fatigue and weakness, muscle pain, painful swallowing, sore throat and bleeding under the skin at injection sites.

Duale said samples taken from the patient tested positive for Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease at both the National Virology Reference Laboratory and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) laboratory.

The patient was placed on supportive treatment but died last night, with the Ministry saying arrangements for a safe and dignified burial were under way.

Duale said 28 contacts of the deceased, including family members and health workers, had so far been identified and were being followed up.

The Ministry is also tracing 23 passengers and four crew members who travelled on the same flight as the deceased, with arrangements for quarantine of people considered at risk under way.

Los Angeles County public health officials have launched an investigation after confirming the first rabies-positive raccoon detection in more than 50 years.

In a news release, the Department of Public Health said that the raccoon was found in the backyard of a home and that it "appeared sick but not aggressive towards people."

Officials said one dog was exposed to the raccoon, but it was up to date on rabies vaccination and has since been quarantined and is doing well. Four people were also possibly exposed and were receiving follow-up for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.

According to LADPH, the last confirmed rabid raccoon in the county was detected in 1973 and had the skunk variant of rabies, which has not been detected since 1979. They also noted that the last animal that wasn't a bat to have confirmed rabies was a skunk that was infected with the bat variant in 2014. [...]

Flu cases are popping up across the province and some doctors say the season is ahead of schedule this year.

Toronto General Hospital infectious diseases specialist Isaac Bogoch says it’s nothing out of the ordinary, though Ontario has been seeing an uptick in cases ahead of Thanksgiving and Halloween weekends.

"It's an early rise but it absolutely is a rise," he told CBC Toronto Monday. "Flu season starts in the fall and it's the fall. Sometimes it's a little earlier in the fall, sometimes it's a little later … usually [it’s the] tail end of October, early November."

The strain circulating most commonly is H1N1 this year, which tends to be milder on those infected and on hospitals than the H3N2 subtype, Bogoch added.

"At an individual level, any flu … can still cause tremendous harm and people feel really, really crummy," he said.

The country saw a 3.7 per cent positivity rate in the week of Sept. 21 to Sept. 26, according to the Government of Canada respiratory virus surveillance report’s latest data. The positivity rate is the number of tests that come back positive, though it's unclear how many individuals seek out a test when they fall ill.

H1N1 was the dominant strain and detections were highest among those aged 65 or older, the data reveals. [...]

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See also: These provinces are seeing an early start to the flu season

While respiratory illnesses typically ramp up in the fall, particularly in October, health authorities on P.E.I. are already reporting confirmed cases and hospitalizations. Alberta, B.C. and southwestern Ontario are also reporting an earlier-than-usual rise in illnesses, with increases beginning as early as September. Farther west, Yukon’s chief medical officer said lab-confirmed cases of influenza A have been identified since mid-August.