diff --git a/plugins/Debian.py b/plugins/Debian.py
index c5663636f..fba1b75b7 100644
--- a/plugins/Debian.py
+++ b/plugins/Debian.py
@@ -312,7 +312,7 @@ class Debian(callbacks.Privmsg,
                      additional('glob', '*')])
 
     _severity = re.compile(r'.*(?:severity set to `([^\']+)\'|'
-                           r'severity:\s+([^\s]+))', re.I)
+                           r'severity:\s+<em>([^<]+)</em>)', re.I)
     _package = re.compile(r'Package: <[^>]+>([^<]+)<', re.I | re.S)
     _reporter = re.compile(r'Reported by: <[^>]+>([^<]+)<', re.I | re.S)
     _subject = re.compile(r'<br>([^<]+)</h1>', re.I | re.S)
@@ -341,7 +341,8 @@ class Debian(callbacks.Privmsg,
             if sev:
                 sev = filter(None, sev.groups())
                 if sev:
-                    resp = '; '.join([resp, 'Severity: %s' % sev[0],
+                    sev = utils.htmlToText(sev[0])
+                    resp = '; '.join([resp, 'Severity: %s' % sev,
                                       '<%s>' % url])
             irc.reply(resp)
         else:
diff --git a/test/test_Debian.py b/test/test_Debian.py
index b25283468..616f04229 100644
--- a/test/test_Debian.py
+++ b/test/test_Debian.py
@@ -58,6 +58,9 @@ class DebianTestCase(PluginTestCase):
             except KeyboardInterrupt:
                 pass
 
+        def testDebBugNoHtml(self):
+            self.assertNotRegexp('debian bug 287792', r'\<em\>')
+
         def testDebversion(self):
             self.assertHelp('debian version')
             self.assertRegexp('debian version lakjdfad',