Russia denies lab worker died of plague as quarantine in Siberia stays in place

Russian health authorities said on Monday that a laboratory assistant at an anti-plague institute in Siberia who died last week did not have plague, even as quarantine restrictions remained in place across multiple hospitals in the region.

Daria Shipilova, 28, a staff member at the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk, may have contracted pneumonic plague after a test tube broke in the laboratory, regional outlets reported, citing unnamed sources close to regional security services.

Authorities placed more than 60 institute employees under isolation inside the building from Friday.

A relative of one employee told Siberia.Realii they slept on the floor and chairs without beds, with food parcels passed through a checkpoint. No positive test results had emerged among staff by Saturday, the relative said.

Several Irkutsk hospitals were also placed under quarantine, including three city clinical hospitals, the Ivano-Matreninsky children's hospital and the city maternity hospital.

The Central District Hospital in Shelekhov, a satellite town where Shipilova lived, was also closed. Sources for People of Baikal said ambulances transporting contacts of Shipilova for examination had been escorted by FSB officers since Thursday.

A mask mandate was introduced at the Irkutsk Aluminium Plant in Shelekhov.

Russia's national health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said tests of biological material from Shipilova found no microorganisms linked to her professional activity and no accidents involving pathogenic micro-organisms had been detected at the institute.

Among those who had contact with her, two cases of COVID-19 and two rhinovirus infections were found; no other infectious agents were identified, it said.

Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev said a special expert commission had concluded the cause of death was "pneumonia of unknown aetiology" and described the public health situation as stable.

"The situation remains under our control and under the control of experts," he said.

The head of neighbouring Buryatia Alexei Tsydenov initially confirmed Shipilova had died of plague after her death, then added the word "possibly." Irkutsk regional authorities posted a message on Saturday asking residents not to travel to Shelekhov because of plague, then deleted it.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday told journalists to focus on official statements from Rospotrebnadzor and not on "various rumours, various speculations."

Rospotrebnadzor has not explained why dozens of staff were isolated and restrictions imposed on several hospitals simultaneously if test results were negative, according to Current Time.

Plague is a bacterial disease with several forms. Pneumonic plague, the most contagious, is transmitted between people and is fatal without early antibiotic treatment, according to the World Health Organization.

Russia has recorded isolated plague cases since 2014, most involving transmission from rodents during skinning, and has contained them successfully.