Russia declares all clear after tracing contacts in reported plague case

MOSCOW: Russia has detected no health issues or dangerous micro-organisms after tracing all contacts of a woman who reportedly died of plague, the governor of Siberia's Irkutsk region said Thursday.

"Medical monitoring of all contacts has... concluded," Governor Igor Kobzev said on Russia's state-backed social platform Max. "No health issues related to infectious disease were detected."

Russia has not confirmed the woman died of plague, and Kobzev said in his statement she had contracted "community-acquired pneumonia."

News outlet People of Baikal, whose journalists have been forced into exile, broke the story last Friday.

They reported that the woman, a 28-year-old employee at a plague research institute in Irkutsk region, had died of plague, possibly after contracting it from a broken test tube.

The United States, the European Union and the World Health Organization all expressed concern, calling on Russia to be transparent about the situation.

Dozens were reportedly quarantined for days amid fears of an outbreak.

"The full range of preventive measures has been completed in the region," Kobzev said, citing information from Russia's health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.

"The sanitary-epidemiological situation in Irkutsk and Shelekhov is stable," he added, referring to the town where the woman was reported to have died.--AFP