The United States is closely monitoring the death of a Russian laboratory technician who worked at a plague research centre in Siberia.
President Donald Trump said Washington is looking “very strongly” at the case of the researcher who died at the facility. He noted that he had not discussed the matter with the Kremlin and added that the US would be willing to help if needed.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said officials were watching the situation carefully amid concerns that the incident could potentially lead to the spread of pneumonic plague. He stressed there was no cause for alarm but that the development required focus and ongoing attention. “If something like that gets out, it can quickly spread,” he said.
The technician, identified in Russian reports as a woman in her late 20s named Darya, worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia. She died after being diagnosed with pneumonia of undetermined etiology. The governor of Irkutsk stated that no micro-organisms linked to her laboratory work had been found in her biological samples.
Unconfirmed accounts have suggested she may have fallen ill after breaking a test tube containing the pathogen or following a field trip to a region near the Mongolian border where plague bacteria circulate naturally among wild rodents such as marmots. Russian health authorities have placed contacts under observation and introduced quarantine measures at some facilities.
The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes plague, is known to exist in the region among animal populations. Officials continue to investigate the exact circumstances of the death while the US monitors developments in coordination with public health agencies.