The White House said it was aware of reports of a suspected plague outbreak in Russia and was monitoring developments after a young laboratory researcher died and roughly 200 people were reportedly placed in quarantine.
Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old researcher at an anti-plague institute in Russia’s eastern Irkutsk region, was reportedly exposed after breaking a test tube containing plague bacteria. Russian authorities, however, have not confirmed whether she contracted the disease.
The Trump administration was “aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options,” a U.S. official told Axios.
Reports said Shipilova was admitted to a hospital in Shelekhov on Tuesday with symptoms of severe pneumonia. She was placed on a ventilator but died on Thursday.
Officials quarantined the hospital and placed dozens of people who had been in contact with Shipilova under medical observation. None of those contacts had developed symptoms, and all tests reported so far were negative.
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Irkutsk Regional Gov. Igor Kobzev did not name the illness, describing it only as “a dangerous infectious disease.” He nevertheless canceled all public events across the region.
Russia’s public-health agency said Shipilova had been diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology.” According to Axios, additional testing detected no microorganisms associated with her laboratory work. Officials said conditions in the region remained stable.
Shipilova reportedly became ill during an expedition with fellow researchers near Russia’s eastern border with Mongolia. The news outlet Lyudi Baikala said she told medical workers that she had accidentally broken a tube containing live bacteria while gathering samples for analysis.
Anna Popova, head of Russia’s public-health watchdog, traveled roughly 2,600 miles from Moscow to the Irkutsk region after reports of the suspected infection emerged. The developments fueled concerns about a potential laboratory-related incident reminiscent of COVID-19, which is widely believed to have originated at a disease research facility in Wuhan, China.
Popova has not publicly addressed the reported outbreak. But senior Russian epidemiologist Mikhal Favorov questioned the account of the broken test tube, suggesting it could be intended to conceal what actually happened, according to The Moscow Times.
“It’s laughable,” Favorov said. He argued that employees at Irkutsk’s anti-plague institute would wear protective suits and that the chance of infection from a broken test tube would be very low. “In short, it doesn’t matter to the general public — they’ll believe the ‘dropped test tube story.’”