Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the US is monitoring a suspected pneumonic plague outbreak in Russia, downplaying it as not ’cause for alarm.’
Fears around an outbreak have spread after Russian scientist Darya Shipilova, 28, died days after reportedly dropping a vial of live plague bacterium at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Siberia last week.
Nearby countries, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, have tightened border health controls despite Russia’s insistence that Shipilova died from ‘unidentified pneumonia’, rather than the plague.
Rubio admitted that while such a suspected outbreak could ‘quickly spread’ there was no immediate cause for concern, particularly because there are no direct commercial flights between the US and Russia.
‘There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously,’ Rubio told reporters on Monday before traveling to Iceland.
‘But like anything else, something like that gets out and could quickly spread. So we’re watching and monitoring it closely.’
‘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. And we’re doing that,’ he added.
Vladimir Putin’s regime is seeking to downplay Shipilova’s death on October 2, yet widespread suspicion of a state cover-up is rapidly spreading.
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