.png)
MOSCOW – Russia on Monday sought to downplay reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, as US President Donald Trump said Washington was closely monitoring the situation and offered to help.
Reports on Friday said pneumonic plague had killed 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, who worked at an anti-plague institute in Siberia's Irkutsk region, sparking alarm.
“We're looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington would do about the risk of plague spreading from Russia.
“We'll help them, we'll help them as much as we can.”
Russian news outlet People of Baikal, citing unnamed sources close to regional security services, reported that Shipilova may have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube.
Other media reported a possible link between her death and a laboratory accident at the facility.
People of Baikal also reported that as many as 200 people who may have come into contact with her were placed under quarantine, without providing further details.
However, Russian officials stressed that postmortem tests had not detected plague.
Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said Monday that a special expert commission had found that “the cause of death was pneumonia of undetermined aetiology”.
He said on Telegram that Russia's consumer and health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor had determined through testing that “no microorganisms linked to the young woman's professional work were found in her biological samples”.
He added that there had been “no new cases of staff from the anti-plague institute seeking medical attention” since the woman's death.
Kobzev said the sanitary and epidemiological situation in Irkutsk was “stable”.
“The situation remains under our control and that of the experts,” he said.
'Rumours and speculations'
Asked about the situation on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters to rely on Rospotrebnadzor's official statements rather than “rumours and speculations”.
Plague is a bacterial disease that can occur in several forms. Pneumonic plague is the most contagious form and can spread through respiratory droplets, while bubonic plague is transmitted through infected fleas.
Pneumonic plague can be fatal if not treated early, according to the World Health Organisation.
The reports are being closely watched in Washington, where memories of the Covid-19 pandemic that began during Trump's first term remain fresh.
Trump has strongly backed the theory that Covid-19 resulted from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was monitoring the situation in Russia but saw no “cause for alarm”.
“There's very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously, but like anything else, something like that gets out, it could quickly spread,” Rubio told reporters before departing for Iceland.
“So we're watching and monitoring it closely. I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it. And we're doing that.”
Experts said the reported response in Russia appeared proportionate.
“It appears that measures are being implemented to quarantine any potential contacts and prevent any onward transmission,” said Malick Gibani, clinical associate professor in bacterial vaccinology at Imperial College London, in a commentary. –AFP
