Researcher from Russia's Plague Research Institute dies of illness, media reports "second case appears", health department denounces fake news

A researcher at a plague research institute in Russia's Siberia region fell ill and died of unknown causes at the beginning of this month. Later, the media claimed that a second case had appeared in the area, causing concern from all walks of life. Russia's health authorities came out today (8th) to refute the rumors, claiming that the so-called "second case" was false news, but have yet to respond to outside questions about the cause of the researcher's illness.

"Reuters" reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that it had asked Russian officials to verify "media reports that a second employee had pneumonia of unknown origin" based on reports from Russian media starhit.ru and the British "Daily Mail".

Russia's Consumer Rights Protection and Public Health Supervision Agency (Rospotrebnadzor) issued a statement today in response. In addition to refuting "false information circulating on social media about the emergence of a second case," it also emphasized that it had completed testing of all contacts of the researcher during his lifetime. "No health problems related to infectious diseases were found. The results of nearly 5,000 laboratory tests did not show dangerous pathogenic microorganisms."

However, under pressure from the United States and the WHO, Rospotrebnadzor has still not stated whether the 28-year-old researcher Darya Shipilova who died of illness died of the plague.

Russian officials currently only stated that Shipilova died of pneumonia of unknown cause and clarified that there was no risk of an epidemic.