MOSCOW: A laboratory worker at a plague research institute in Siberia has fallen ill and died in undisclosed circumstances, prompting authorities to quarantine dozens of people, and the head of Russia’s health watchdog to fly to the Irkutsk region. The death has sparked public health fears on social media, but the authorities said on Monday the situation was under control.

Plague is endemic to Siberia, location of the first known prehistoric human outbreak, as the bacterium that causes it, Yersinia pestis, is present among the small wild mammals in its vast wilderness and their fleas. It is rare for Russians to fall ill with plague, however, though cases in other parts of the world — notably Africa — occur every year.

Local media named the woman as Darya Shipilova, an employee at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. There were conflicting reports about how and where the laboratory worker, whose age was given as 28, had fallen ill, but the authorities said she had died of pneumonia of as-yet unestablished origin. Russia’s health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, told state media the institute had not found evidence of any accidents involving the handling of pathogens after rumours spread on social media that the woman had dropped a test tube containing live bacteria.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2026