GENEVA \u2013 The World Health Organization says a possible case of pneumonic plague in Russia presents a \u201cvery low\u201d risk outside the country as investigators look into what caused the death from pneumonia of a lab employee there last week.<\/p>\n
The U.N. health agency said on Tuesday that it has been in contact with Russian authorities following reports of the death last week of a woman<\/a> who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East.<\/p>\n The case and the investigation, led by Russian officials, have revived memories of the COVID-19 pandemic and allegations that the coronavirus<\/a> may have emerged at a Chinese lab. WHO has not provided a definitive answer<\/a> to how the pandemic began.<\/p>\n Here’s what to know about the case and how experts are mobilizing after the woman’s death:<\/p>\n Pneumonic plague is a form of the disease that affects the lungs<\/p>\n The incubation period for pneumonic plague \u2014 which means lung-based and is the most virulent form of the disease \u2014 can be as short as 24 hours, according to WHO. It\u2019s a less common but severe form that can spread between people through respiratory particles.<\/p>\n If untreated, the illness can be fatal, but recovery rates are high if detected and treated in time \u2014 within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms, WHO says.<\/p>\n Symptoms include shortness of breath and coughing, often involving the coughing up of blood.<\/p>\n The more common form of plague \u2014 bubonic plague \u2014 is caused by the bite of an infected flea, and can develop into open sores filled with pus. <\/p>\n Pneumonia is a form of acute respiratory infection that is mostly caused by viruses or bacteria, and is spread generally through contact with infected people or from airborne droplets. WHO says pneumonia is the single largest infectious cause of death in children worldwide.<\/p>\n A look at what Russian officials are saying about the case<\/p>\n Through an international health alert system, Russian health officials on Tuesday said a full range of preventive measures had been carried out \u2014 including tracing of the deceased woman’s contacts, medical monitoring and lab tests. <\/p>\n \u201cTest results showed no presence of dangerous infectious disease pathogens in any of the contacts,\u201d said the note from Russian authorities, which was relayed to The Associated Press by WHO.<\/p>\n “Based on available data, laboratory test results, and health status, medical monitoring for 100% of the contacts has now been concluded,” it said. \u201cThe epidemiological situation is stable and remains under monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n The woman died at a hospital in Shelekhov, a town just outside the city of Irkutsk, and its mayor said the hospital was placed under quarantine. The top officials from Russia\u2019s national public health watchdog traveled to the region on Friday.<\/p>\n On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov advised the public to follow official statements from the watchdog agency, Rospotrebnadzor, rather than \u201crumors or speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n WHO has mobilized its own experts to look into the case<\/p>\n WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a U.N. briefing on Tuesday that the institute where the woman worked \u201cstudies dangerous pathogens,\u201d including plague in a part of Siberia where the disease “occurs naturally in wild animals.\u201d<\/p>\n He said Russian officials have not yet asked for WHO experts to deploy to Russia, where authorities are “looking into whether pneumonic plague caused her death.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent days, WHO has brought in technical experts to its Geneva headquarters and the European regional office in Copenhagen in connection with the investigation, including specialists in high-threat pathogens.<\/p>\n \u201cThe WHO initial risk assessment from the information available estimates … the risk to be moderate-to-low for Irkutsk; a low risk for the Russian Federation as a whole; and very low for the WHO European region,\u201d Lindmeier said.<\/p>\n Trump and Rubio have commented on the case<\/p>\n U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was watching the situation with concern and that the United States would be willing to help, though he said he had not spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the case.<\/p>\n Asked about Trump\u2019s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said Tuesday that \u201cit is always very good when mutual assistance is offered.\u201d He wouldn\u2019t elaborate further, deferring to Rospotrebnadzor.<\/p>\n U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Russian authorities to share more information.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe there\u2019s nothing there. Maybe it\u2019s bigger than we thought. We don\u2019t know,\u201d he said at a news conference in Iceland. \u201cWe\u2019re watching it very closely and I think the whole world is watching it very closely.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe encourage Russia to be more transparent and share more information with the world,\u201d Rubio said, adding this has so far been \u201cquite limited, but hopefully that will change in the next few hours and days.\u201d<\/p>\n Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading, said that \u201cplague carries a huge history and is still present in many parts of the world, including Russia,\u201d although because of modern living conditions and antibiotics, its potential was limited.<\/p>\n Dr. Glenn Wortmann, at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center, said the bacteria that cause plague don’t \u201ctravel very far\u201d and a person would \u201creally need to be face-to-face\u201d with an infected person to get pneumonic plague.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chance of this spreading widely in Russia and then extending here to the U.S. will not happen, not with this type of bacteria, because it\u2019s not spread easily and we have antibiotics to stop it from spreading,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Matthew Lee in Reykjavik, Iceland, contributed to this report. <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. 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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA \u2013 The World Health Organization says a possible case of pneumonic plague in Russia presents a \u201cvery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,273183,16786,12,451,97,367770,643,3,452,453,6508,965],"class_list":["post-872839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-christian-lindmeier","tag-dmitry-peskov","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-ian-jones","tag-marco-rubio","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}