The White House is on high alert after reports that a 28-year-old Russian scientist died from the plague following an alleged lab accident in Siberia, sparking fears of a possible outbreak that Russian authorities are accused of covering up.
The scientist, named as Daria Shipilova, worked as a laboratory assistant at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute. According to reports, she told medical staff she had accidentally broken a test tube holding live bacteria at the institute. She later fell ill while on an expedition with colleagues in Buryatia, near Russia’s eastern border with Mongolia, and died in mysterious circumstances.
Residents in Russia’s Irkutsk region have filmed workers in full protective gear responding in the area, while hundreds of people are said to have been placed in quarantine, hospitals shut down and public events cancelled amid growing concern.
Washington is watching
The Trump administration is “aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options,” White House officials told Axios on Sunday. The comments signal that Washington is taking the reports seriously as it seeks to establish what happened at the high-security facility.
Some outlets reported that Shipilova had been exposed to the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, raising fears of pneumonic plague — the most dangerous form of the disease, which can spread between people.
Moscow denies an accident
Russian health authorities have pushed back against the claims. Officials said extensive tests on samples from the young scientist did not detect microorganisms linked to her work at the anti-plague institute, and claimed an investigation found no accidents involving dangerous pathogens or a broken test tube at the laboratory.
Health officials also initially failed to mention that Shipilova had died, fueling suspicions of a cover-up. The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute is a high-security laboratory that studies some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens.
The World Health Organization has long classified plague as a re-emerging disease risk, and any confirmed outbreak linked to a laboratory accident would raise urgent international questions. For now, Washington says it is watching developments closely.
Source: The Sun