MOSCOW - Russia sought to downplay reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, even as President Donald Trump said Washington was closely monitoring the situation and offered US help.
Reports on Friday that pneumonic plague had killed a 28-year-old woman named Darya Shipilova, who had been working for the anti-plague institute in Siberia's Irkutsk region, sparked alarm.
"We're looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington was going to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.
"We'll help them, we'll help them as much as we can."
The Russian news outlet People of Baikal, citing unnamed sources close to the regional security services, said the dead woman may have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube.
Other media reported a possible link between her death and a lab accident at the facility.
As many as 200 people with whom she may have had contact were under quarantine, the People of Baikal outlet added, without elaborating.
But Russian officials stressed that postmortem tests had not detected the disease.
Irkutsk Regional Governor Igor Kobzev said Monday that a special expert commission inspection in the region had found that "the cause of death was pneumonia of undetermined aetiology".
He said on Telegram that Russia's consumer and health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor had determined, following tests, that "no microorganisms linked to the young woman's professional work were found in her biological samples".
He added that there had been "no new cases of staff from the anti-plague institute seeking medical attention" since the woman's death.
Kobzev said the sanitary-epidemiological situation in Irkutsk was "stable".
"The situation remains under our control and that of the experts."
Asked about the situation on Monday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters to "rely on Rospotrebnadzor's official statements rather than... rumours and speculations".
Plague is a bacterial disease that can occur in several forms, including pneumonic plague, which is the most contagious type and can be transmitted by respiratory means. Bubonic plague is transmitted by infected fleas.
Pneumonic plague can be fatal if not treated early, according to the World Health Organization.
- AFP