A second person has reportedly died of plague in Siberia as international alarm builds over a possible outbreak centered on a Russian research lab.
The new fatality was claimed Tuesday by local media in the Irkutsk region, where the victim allegedly succumbed at Irkutsk district hospital after contracting the disease. The report surfaces just days after the death of Darya Shipilova, 28, a laboratory worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, whose case has already triggered quarantine measures and border alerts across Central Asia.
Shipilova died October 2 in Shelekhov, a satellite city of Irkutsk, after falling ill during a field expedition with colleagues in Buryatia near the Mongolian border. She was admitted to hospital September 29 and placed on a ventilator. She had told medical staff she accidentally broke a test tube containing live bacteria, and had personally worked with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
Russia’s federal health agency, Rospotrebnadzor, has insisted Shipilova died of “pneumonia of an unspecified type” and denied any outbreak exists. The agency issued its statement October 4, framing the death as isolated and unconnected to plague.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov urged the public to disregard unofficial accounts. “One should rely on official statements from Rospotrebnadzor rather than listening to various rumors and speculation,” he said.
The official narrative has faced growing skepticism as media reports on the situation have allegedly vanished. The Insider, an independent Russian outlet, reported that REN TV deleted all five of its publications about plague in the Irkutsk region. Reports from Channel 5 and the nationally distributed daily Kommersant have also allegedly disappeared, according to the same outlet.
Roughly 200 people are being monitored in connection with the case, and local outlet Lyudi Baikala reported that City Clinical Hospitals No. 1, 3 and 10 and the Ivano-Matreninskaya Children’s Hospital have been closed for a three-week quarantine. Reports also claim drugs used to treat plague are running out in the region.
Neighboring Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have tightened border health controls amid speculation that Shipilova was killed by pneumonic plague, the airborne form of the disease caused by Yersinia pestis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pneumonic plague is the only form of plague that can spread from person to person through respiratory droplets. The World Health Organization considers it more severe than bubonic plague, the form associated with the medieval Black Death.
The international response has sharpened in recent days. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that Washington was tracking the reports. “I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it,” he told reporters.
President Trump, speaking the same day, offered American assistance to Moscow. “The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately, but we’ll help them,” he said.
Rospotrebnadzor fired back Tuesday with a pointed response, stating that Russia stood ready to assist the United States with its own disease outbreaks. The agency cited “significantly worsened” measles in three American states and a fatal case of plague in New Mexico in June.
Pneumonic plague typically presents with fever, shortness of breath and coughing up blood three to seven days after exposure. The CDC notes that fatalities drop to around 17 percent if treated with antibiotics within the first 24 hours, but the disease is almost always fatal if left untreated.
The original incident that sparked the current crisis began when Shipilova, a researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, participated in a field expedition in Buryatia. She reportedly broke a test tube containing live plague bacteria, then fell ill and was hospitalized. Her death on October 2 and the subsequent quarantine of contacts, hospital closures, and border controls across Central Asia have fueled speculation that Russian authorities are downplaying a more serious situation. The emergence of a reported second death at Irkutsk district hospital has only intensified those fears, even as official sources maintain there is no outbreak.
Trump is expected to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation.