Russian Plague Lab Researcher, 28, Allegedly Infected After Test Tube Blunder — as 3 Hospitals Are Placed on Lockdown, According to Reports
WHO said it needs more details on the illness, lab tests and public-health response after Russian authorities reported no plague cases among contacts.
- On October 2, 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, a researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia, died following an undisclosed illness. Russia's public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, attributed the death to "pneumonia of unknown etiology."
- Authorities have placed nearly 200 contacts of Shipilova under medical observation while quarantining the hospital in Shelekhov. Officials reported completing a "complex of prophylactic measures," identifying two cases of COVID-19 and two cases of rhinovirus among those monitored.
- Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev described the death as a "particularly dangerous infection," noting the incubation period for pneumonic plague can be as short as 24 hours. Colleagues emphasized that facility safety protocols, established in the 1920s, are extremely strict.
- President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the case "very soon," adding the United States is in "very deep discussions" on the topic.
- Modern antibiotics and surveillance systems make plague far less dangerous than in the medieval era, and experts note the risk to the public is very low as authorities continue monitoring contacts to confirm the cause of death.
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65 Articles
The death of a 28-year-old researcher from an institution studying plague in Siberia continues to cause controversy after the young woman's mother publicly rejected the explanation originally provided by the authorities.
In Siberia, a scientist dies of the plague, it is said for a short time. Then it was supposed to have been only pneumonia. The mother of the late 28-year-olds does not believe all this. Is something covered up?
Colin McKenzie, a microbiologist at the University Hospital in Düsseldorf, talks about what the Russian authorities say about what happened in Irkutsk and whether there is a threat of the spread of the plague. DW interview.
For days, Daria Shipilova was known above all as "the deceased researcher at the Institute of Peste." But it seems a definition too simplistic...
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