U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States is paying close attention to an accident reported by a plague research institute in Siberia, Russia, that resulted in the death of a laboratory worker last week.
The British "Guardian" reported that Rubio said before leaving for a visit to Europe on the 5th: "We are closely observing and monitoring this matter. I don't think this is a level that requires panic, but it is indeed worthy of attention and continued attention."
Darya Shipilova, 28, was an employee of the Anti-plague Research Institute in Irkutsk. She felt unwell while working and died two days later in a regional hospital in the neighboring town of Shelekhov on the evening of October 2.
It's unclear why she became ill. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media suggested that Shipilova may have been infected due to a laboratory accident. Officials have not publicly confirmed this claim.
Local media reported that the institute was subsequently put on lockdown and staff were forced to sleep on the floor and chairs. "They started quarantining everyone, more than 60 people, from Friday," Roman, a relative, told the news portal Siberia.Realities.
He said families were allowed to place food at checkpoints while testing was conducted inside the building. Similar quarantine restrictions are in place at several hospitals in and around the city.
Citing information released by Russia in response to the death, Rubio pointed out that it appeared that a laboratory employee was infected, and the concern is that the disease may have spread internally. "Obviously, travel between the United States and Russia is very limited." "But like anything else, once this leaks out, it spreads quickly."
Top Russian officials have issued conflicting messages, fueling public unease. Alexey Tsydenov, the head of the Republic of Buryatia, which borders Irkutsk, initially posted that Shipilova died of plague, but later revised the post to say that she "probably" died of the disease.
Russia's health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said Shipilova died of "pneumonia of unknown origin" and insisted that tests had not found microorganisms related to her professional work, describing the "sanitary and epidemiological" situation in the region as stable.
Authorities in the nearby city of Baikalsk at one point urged residents to avoid travel to Sherekhov and surrounding settlements, saying they had received unofficial information about possible plague infections, but later deleted the post from social media.
Despite the lack of confirmed diagnoses, precautionary measures appear to be in place across the region. "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty" (RFE/RL) funded by the United States reported on the 5th that many hospitals in Irkutsk have been placed in isolation. Employees of the "Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East" where Shipilova works have been detained in the institute since October 2.
On social media, local residents described some of the preventive measures being implemented. Ulyana Gavryunina, who went to a major obstetrics and gynecology hospital in Irkutsk for a routine check-up on the 5th, said the doctor refused to let her mother in because of the quarantine due to a suspected case of plague. Staff checked her for flu-like symptoms and asked her to fill out an infection screening form that listed "plague" as an option.
Elsewhere, a mask mandate was implemented at the Irkutsk aluminum smelter in Serekhov. Artyom Fominykh, the director of the factory, claimed that this was a precautionary measure to "prepare for emergencies." Over the weekend, many public events in Irkutsk were canceled.
Shipilova's death prompted the intervention of top federal health officials. Anna Popova, director of the Federal Service for Consumer Protection and Welfare Supervision and the country's chief health officer, went to Irkutsk on the 2nd to attend an emergency meeting of the Regional Health and Epidemic Prevention Committee to discuss suspected cases of what officials called "particularly dangerous infectious diseases."
Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev urged residents to remain calm after meeting with Popova to coordinate response measures. He wrote on Telegram: "All confirmed contacts have been placed under medical observation. As of today, no one has shown signs of illness, and laboratory test results have all come back negative." However, he did not mention reports of deaths of laboratory personnel.
The incident comes after the Kremlin has long leveled baseless accusations that Ukraine is secretly conducting bioweapons research with Washington's support.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote on social media: "I remember hearing the anti-Ukrainian camp talking about what they called biolabs. That was the height of Russian information warfare. But the reality is that it is Russia that has the biolabs."
Plague remains endemic in parts of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the bacterium persists naturally in wild rodents and their fleas, but human infection is extremely rare. Before the suspected case in Irkutsk, the last recorded human infection in Russia was in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy in Siberia's Altai Republic contracted plague after helping to slaughter marmots.
Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in the UK, believes that this incident appears to be a rare laboratory accident and is unlikely to expand further. Although it is true that pneumonic plague can be transmitted directly, the contacts of the first case of the disease are known and can receive treatment if they show any signs of infection.
