Russia's silence on lab worker's death leaves WHO seeking answers on suspected plague
The World Health Organization is pressing Russia for more information after a 28-year-old lab worker, identified by Russian media as Darya Shipilova, died in early October at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia. Russian authorities say she died of pneumonia of unknown origin and that no plague was found, while about 200 contacts were monitored and a hospital was quarantined. Western officials and experts say the lack of transparency keeps the case under scrutiny, though the WHO considers the general public risk low.
Bottom line — Russia's contradictory messaging means the WHO still lacks the pathogen behind a Siberian death, with roughly 200 contacts under observation.
Go deeper 9
-
WHO director general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency could not verify media reports of a second pneumonia case linked to the Irkutsk lab and is seeking clarification from Russian officials.
-
Russia's health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said extensive testing found no evidence the worker's illness was caused by any pathogen she handled, while the Kremlin referred all questions to that agency.
-
Local reports cited by Al Jazeera said the worker may have been exposed after a broken test tube, but Al Jazeera noted this has not been officially confirmed.
-
Virginia Commonwealth University political scientist Judy Twigg, quoted by CBC, argued that Russia's 2020 law criminalising 'false information' makes silence the safe option for officials.
-
Johns Hopkins' Dr. Amesh Adalja, quoted by CBS News, said the official response did not fit plague, which is treatable with antibiotics in the 21st century.
-
Dr. Ashish Jha, former White House Covid response coordinator, told NBC News that person-to-person spread of pneumonic plague is very hard and a wider outbreak exceedingly unlikely, but that more transparency from Moscow is needed.
-
Snopes said it could not reach Rospotrebnadzor's website or access primary sources, leaving the cause of death unverified, and rated the social-media claim of a lab-accident death unrated.
-
The US State Department said it had asked Russia for additional information and encouraged it to share details 'quickly and transparently', while Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he did not see cause for alarm.
-
The WHO reported that between 2019 and 2025, 10 countries reported more than 3,800 suspected human plague cases, with 423 deaths in the six that confirmed cases, mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar.