For a few hours, plague was the word Russian officials were willing to use. On October 3, officials in Baikalsk warned residents away from nearby Shelekhov, citing reports of plague, before deleting the post. Broadcaster REN TV removed five posts about the plague.
Alexey Tsydenov, head of neighboring Buryatia, initially wrote that a woman had died of plague before later amending the post to say she may have died of plague. Russia’s eventual federal explanation was different again—pneumonia of unknown etiology. Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is pressing Moscow to explain the gap.
Speaking in Iceland on Tuesday, Rubio said Russia should provide more information about the death and that Washington was monitoring the case “very closely, hour by hour.” The woman was Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute who was hospitalized on September 29 and died on October 2. Russia’s health watchdog says testing found neither microorganisms linked to her work nor evidence of a laboratory accident. WHO said on Tuesday that no identified contacts have developed symptoms and that Russia reported finding no dangerous infectious pathogens among them.
But three inconsistencies between the original and amended responses and explanations paint a different story. Plague entered official accounts before federal health authorities rejected it. Once the word was out, officials faced a second problem—getting it back out of the public conversation.
Regional officials first described a suspected “particularly dangerous infectious disease.” Tsydenov went further, saying a woman had died of plague before amending the post and the officials in Baikalsk later issued their warning before deleting it. Rospotrebnadzor said expanded testing found no microorganisms connected with Shipilova’s professional activity and that an official commission identified no accident involving pathogenic microorganisms. Her death was recorded as pneumonia of unknown etiology.
Diagnoses change in a fast-moving emergency so that alone isn't suspicious. Russia has explained why it now says Shipilova’s death was unrelated to her laboratory work; it has not, however, explained why plague entered official accounts so quickly, or what caused the pneumonia instead. People of Baikal reported that Shipilova broke a tube containing Yersinia pestis at work on September 25.
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