A 28-year-old researcher died after falling ill at an Irkutsk anti-plague institute, prompting quarantine measures, public anxiety and scrutiny from Washington.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the United States is keeping a close watch on the death of a young Russian laboratory employee who became ill at a Siberian plague research facility. Speaking before a trip to Europe, Rubio said the situation was not a reason for panic but did justify attention and continued monitoring.
The employee, Darya Shipilova, 28, worked at the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk. She became sick at work and died two days later, on the night of 2 October, at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov. How she contracted the illness remains unclear. Russian media have carried unconfirmed reports that a laboratory accident may have infected her, but officials have not publicly confirmed that account.
After her death, local media reported that the institute had been locked down. A relative identified as Roman told the news outlet Siberia. Realities that more than 60 people had been isolated since Friday and that staff were sleeping on floors and chairs. Families were allowed to leave food at a checkpoint while tests were carried out inside, he said. Similar quarantine restrictions were reportedly placed on several other hospitals in and around Irkutsk.
Rubio said Russian disclosures suggested that a lab worker had become infected and that there was concern the disease might have spread inside the facility. He noted that travel between the US and Russia is limited, but warned that an infectious outbreak, once it escapes, can spread quickly.
Russian official statements have been inconsistent. Alexey Tsydenov, the head of Buryatia, a region bordering Irkutsk, initially wrote that Shipilova had died of plague, then edited his post to say she had “possibly” died of the disease. Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said the cause was “pneumonia of unknown aetiology” and insisted that tests found no microorganisms linked to her professional work. It described the local sanitary and epidemiological situation as stable.
In Baikalsk, authorities briefly urged residents to avoid travelling to Shelekhov and surrounding settlements after what they called unofficial information about a possible plague infection. The warning was later deleted from social media. Elena Trifonova, a journalist with the exiled Siberian outlet People of Baikal, said daily life on the streets appeared largely unchanged, but residents were worried and angry that they were not being told anything.
Despite the absence of a confirmed diagnosis, precautionary measures appear to have been introduced across the region. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the US, reported Monday that several hospitals in Irkutsk had been placed under quarantine. It said staff from Shipilova’s workplace, the Irkutsk Anti-plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, had been kept inside since 2 October. Patients at Irkutsk city clinical hospital No 1 and the Ivano-Matreninskaya children’s hospital said relatives were not allowed to visit and people inside were not permitted to leave.
On social media, local residents described some of the restrictions. Ulyana Gavryunina said that when she went to one of Irkutsk’s main maternity hospitals for a routine check-up, doctors refused to let her mother enter because of a quarantine imposed over the suspected plague case. She said staff checked her for flu-like symptoms and asked her to fill out an infection screening form that listed plague; she posted a photograph of the form on Instagram. At the Irkutsk aluminium smelter in Shelekhov, masks were required. The plant’s director, Artyom Fominykh, called it a preventive measure, saying it was better to be safe. Several public events in Irkutsk were cancelled over the weekend.
The death also prompted intervention from senior federal health officials. Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor and Russia’s chief sanitary doctor, travelled to Irkutsk on Friday. She attended an emergency meeting of the regional sanitary and anti-epidemic commission over what officials called a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection.” Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev, after meeting Popova to coordinate the response, urged residents to remain calm. He said all identified contacts had been placed under medical observation, none were showing signs of illness, and laboratory tests had returned negative results. He made no reference to reports that a laboratory worker had died.
US politicians have also raised concerns. The incident follows longstanding and unfounded Kremlin allegations that Ukraine has secretly carried out biological weapons research with Washington’s support. Republican Representative Don Bacon, a senior member of the House armed services committee, wrote on social media that he remembered hearing anti-Ukraine voices discuss so-called bio labs, calling it Russian disinformation, and added that in reality it is Russia that has the bio labs.
Plague remains endemic in parts of Siberia and the Russian far east, where the bacterium persists naturally among wild rodents and their fleas. Human cases in Russia are rare. Before the suspected Irkutsk case, the country’s last recorded human infection was in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy in Siberia’s Altai Republic contracted plague after helping butcher a marmot.
Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in the UK, said the case appeared to be a rare laboratory accident and was unlikely to go much further. He noted that pneumonic plague is directly transmissible, but the contacts of the primary case are known and can be treated if they show signs of infection. Plague carries a huge history and is still present in many parts of the world, including Russia, he said, but the living conditions associated with past spread are no longer generally true, antibiotics are available, and its potential is therefore limited.