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🦠 🇷🇺 🇺🇸 US closely monitoring case of lab worker who ‘possibly’ died of plague in Siberia, says Rubio
Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee at the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, became ill at work. She died two days later on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov.
It remains unclear how she became unwell. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media have suggested Shipilova may have been infected after a mishap at the laboratory. Officials have not publicly confirmed that account.
Local media have reported that the institute has subsequently been locked down, with staff forced to sleep on the floor and on chairs. “They’ve been isolating everybody since Friday – more than 60 people,” one relative, Roman, told the news portal Siberia.Realities.
He said family members were allowed to drop off food at a checkpoint while tests were carried out inside the building. Similar quarantine restrictions have been placed on several other hospitals in and around the city.
Rubio, citing what Russians have released about the death, said it seemed a worker in the lab became infected and there was concern the disease may have spread internally.
Senior Russian officials have added to public disquiet by sending conflicting messages. Alexey Tsydenov, the head of the Buryatia region, which neighbours Irkutsk, initially wrote that Shipilova had died of plague, before editing his post to say she had “possibly” died of the disease.
Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said Shipilova died from “pneumonia of unknown aetiology”. It insisted that tests found no micro-organisms linked to her professional work and described the “sanitary and epidemiological” situation in the area as stable.
Authorities in the nearby city of Baikalsk briefly urged residents to avoid travelling to Shelekhov and surrounding settlements after what they said was unofficial information about a possible plague infection. They later deleted the post from social media.
US politicians have raised concerns about the incident, which follows longstanding and unfounded allegations by the Kremlin that Ukraine has secretly carried out biological weapons research with the support of Washington.
