Dozens quarantined in Siberia after plague institute lab worker dies - Reuters

7 October 2026Basillioh RukangaNairobiReutersThose placed at the Ebola isolation facility are under constant observationTen people who came into contact with a man who died of Ebola in Kenya have been quarantined, health officials in the East African nation say. They are also trying to trace 57 other contacts of the Kenyan patient after he travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo, dying in hospital in Nairobi on Monday. This is the East African nation's first-ever Ebola case and there is now growing concern about the country's screening measures. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention chief has told the BBC that despite being sick for a month, the patient passed through multiple cities in DR Congo, driving to Uganda and eventually flying to Kenya without his sickness being detected. "We know that he left Buta, a city in [northern] DR Congo, to drive to Kisangani. And from Kisangani, he took a flight to Beni. From Beni, he drove to Uganda. And from Uganda, he took a flight to Nairobi," Jean Kaseya told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. "What are symptoms he was presenting? Why was he not detected? " he asked.

HealthHealth authorities in Russia say there is “no plague case” in Siberia following reports last week that a lab technician had died of pneumonia of an unknown origin in the region, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Wednesday. Russian regulators told WHO on Tuesday that there was no evidence pneumonic plague played a part in her death and that no pathogens had been detected, agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. About 200 of her contacts have been placed in quarantine. Further requests for information have been sent to Russian authorities, he added, noting that the lab is part of an institute in Irkutsk that studies dangerous pathogens, including plague, which occurs naturally in wild animals in the area.

Bioengineer.org news storyFor people living with HIV, modern antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to levels below what standard laboratory tests can detect. Yet some patients on long-term treatment experience a curious phenomenon: a single test result showing a small, transient amount of virus in the blood, followed by an immediate return to undetectable levels. These events, known as viral blips, have puzzled clinicians and researchers for years, raising questions about whether they represent harmless statistical noise, brief bursts of viral production from hidden reservoirs, or early warnings of impending treatment failure. A new nationwide Swedish study, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, offers one of the most comprehensive answers to date. Drawing on the Swedish national InfCareHIV cohort, researchers analyzed data from 4,210 treatment-naïve adults who began antiretroviral therapy from 1 January 2007 onward, with follow-up data extracted through 30 September 2020. The median observation time was 5.5 years, with some individuals followed for as long as 13.7 years.

European Medical Journal news storyPeople living with HIV may experience subtle changes in heart muscle function even when conventional measures of cardiac performance remain normal, according to findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis. Researchers identified significantly impaired global longitudinal strain (GLS) among people with HIV compared with HIV-uninfected individuals, despite preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in both groups. The findings suggest that speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) could provide additional information about early myocardial dysfunction in this population. Read the full news story here.