WHO Presses Russia for Answers on a Second Sick Worker at the Siberian Plague Institute

The World Health Organization is asking Russia to explain reports that a second employee of a Siberian plague research institute has fallen ill with pneumonia of unclear cause, days after a young colleague died of a mysterious lung infection. Russian officials, for their part, insist there is no plague and no risk of an outbreak.

What Russia told the WHO

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that Russian regulators told the agency on Tuesday there was no evidence that pneumonic plague played a role in the death of the worker, a 28-year-old technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute, and that no pathogens had been found. According to UN News, about 200 of her contacts were placed in quarantine. Russia's health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said nearly 5,000 lab tests turned up no dangerous germs and that more than 90% of her contacts had finished medical monitoring, Euronews reported. Officials still describe her cause of death as pneumonia of undetermined origin.

Maria Van Kerkhove, who leads the WHO's epidemic and pandemic threat work, said the agency has asked Moscow for lab results and further analysis, including information about the reported second case. Tedros said "timely, complete and transparent information-sharing" under international health rules is critical.

Kremlin pushes back

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that most of what the media is reporting about the situation is false and urged people to rely on Rospotrebnadzor's statements. He said he had no information about a formal U.S. request. The State Department, however, said it has officially asked the Russian government for more information. The European Commission also called for timely and transparent reporting, and AFP reported that neighboring Mongolia has stepped up health surveillance.

How worried should people be?

The WHO said Tuesday that, based on what it knows so far, the risk is moderate to low for the Irkutsk region, low for Russia overall and very low for Europe. Plague still occurs naturally among wild animals in that part of Siberia, and the WHO says nearly 4,000 human cases and 423 deaths were reported in 10 countries from 2019 to 2025, most of them in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar.

Pneumonic plague, which infects the lungs, is the most dangerous form because it can spread from person to person through respiratory droplets. Untreated, it is almost always fatal, but common antibiotics work well when given early. According to Euronews, a confirmed case would be Russia's first plague infection since 2016.