Tuesday, October 6, 2026 -The Trump administration is monitoring a suspected pneumonic plague death that has caused panic in Russia and led to hundreds of people being placed under quarantine, according to reports.
Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old researcher at the Anti-Plague
Research Institute in Shelekhov, Irkutsk, was reportedly exposed to live Yersinia
pestis bacteria when she accidentally broke a test tube containing the
pathogen while collecting samples.
She is understood to have been hospitalized on 29 September
with severe pneumonia of “unknown origin” and placed on a ventilator, but died
two days later.
The Trump administration “is aware, monitoring the outbreak,
and assessing options,” an official told Axios.
Authorities additionally quarantined an entire hospital and
placed scores of people who had come into contact with her under medical
observation. However, none of the identified contacts showed symptoms, and
their test results have come back negative.
Regional Gov. Igor Kobzev declined to identify the illness,
referring to it only as “a dangerous infectious disease” but canceled all
public events in the region.
Russia’s public health agency, meanwhile, only said
Shipilova had “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and that further testing found no
microorganisms linked to her work, according to Axios. Agency officials said
that the situation in the region is stable.
Shipilova, who fell ill while on an expedition with
other researchers near Russia’s eastern border with Mongolia, reportedly told
medical staff that she had accidentally broken a test tube containing live
bacteria while collecting samples for testing, according to news outlet Lyudi
Baikala.
Plague is a rare and severe infectious disease caused by the
bacterium Yersinia pestis.
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