US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has urged Russia to release more information about the death of a laboratory worker in Siberia, as health authorities investigate an illness that has prompted unconfirmed reports of pneumonic plague.
Russia says the woman died from pneumonia of an undetermined cause. The World Health Organization’s preliminary assessment puts the risk at moderate to low in Irkutsk, low across Russia and very low in its European region, according to comments reported by Australia’s ABC.
“We’re watching it very closely, hour-by-hour,” Rubio said in Iceland on 6 October, according to the ABC. He called on Moscow to share more information about the case.
The woman worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Russian authorities said extensive testing found no microorganisms in her body linked to her work, Reuters reported.
Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said on 6 October that no plague cases had been detected among her contacts and that no infectious diseases had been reported among the institute’s staff over the preceding 10 days, according to Reuters.
The watchdog said contacts had been identified and placed under medical observation in hospital, with daily laboratory tests. Those tests found two cases of Covid-19 and two rhinovirus infections, it said.
The agency also rejected a document circulating online that purported to set out severe restrictions for the region, the ABC reported. It said no such decisions had been made and described the situation in Irkutsk and neighbouring Shelekhov as stable.
WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said the organisation was seeking to verify the circumstances of the death, the tests being conducted and their results, according to the ABC.
The WHO’s guidance on the International Health Regulations requires countries to assess public health events and notify it of qualifying events within 24 hours of that assessment. The deadline runs from the assessment, rather than automatically from the occurrence of an illness or death.
Pneumonic plague affects the lungs and can spread between people through respiratory particles, according to the WHO. The organisation says early diagnosis and antibiotic treatment can save lives.
US President Donald Trump said on 6 October that he had a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the possible plague case, the Associated Press reported. He said they would speak “very soon”.
