Oct 7, 2026 · 19 min · 11 segments
U.S. officials press Russia for answers after a researcher dies following a mysterious illness at a Siberian anti-plague lab, as reports of a possible second death raise new questions about what…
Tom BevanHost
The Daily Mail report, citing Russian media, saying the unidentified person died at an Irkutsk district hospital after allegedly contracting plague, a claim Russian authorities have not confirmed.
It comes four days after 28-year-old researcher Darya Shipilova died after working at Siberia's Anti-Plague Institute.
Russian officials insisting her death was caused by pneumonia of unknown origin, and that no plague has been detected.
At the same time, some Russian news organizations reporting about the suspected outbreak has been disappearing.
Independent Russian outlet The Insider reporting federal network Ren TV deleted all five of its posts about plague in the region, while Kommersant removed both a Telegram post and an online article referring to US concerns about a possible outbreak.
CNN, meanwhile, reporting on new disease control measures at a maternity hospital in the region.
A 29-year-old woman telling the outlet she was forced to switch hospitals at 40 weeks pregnant after new quarantine restrictions prevented her husband from being with her during labor.
She says staff checked her temperature, examined her tongue, required a mask and hand sanitizer, and gave her a questionnaire titled, quote, "Checklist for Suspected Highly Dangerous Infectious Disease Plague." Now, international pressure mounts on Russia to explain exactly what happened at that laboratory.
Anytime you hear that there's some disease that infected someone in a lab anywhere in the world, you're gonna be concerned about it, especially given recent events not so long ago.
That said, it would be irresponsible for me here to sit and speculate because we just don't have all the information yet.
I think it's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world, and the more we can learn about what happened, then I ...
The, the better all of us can be in a position of responding.
But I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate about what this might or might not be or what this is or what this isn't.
Secretary Rubio's call for more transparency coming as the specific facility where Shipilova worked draws scrutiny of its own.
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen, author of Biological War: A Scenario, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, telling PBS NewsHour on Monday the institute has a history extending well beyond ordinary public health research.
This is an anti-plague institute, so they're supposed to be studying medical countermeasures to plague, like vaccines, antibiotics.
But this particular institute, we know from Soviet defector scientists, was used for biological weapons engineering during their illegal program.
We also know the State Department believes that that illegal biological weapons program has continued.
And so what they're really worried about is what is going on.
I mean, look, the facility is, has six-foot-high fences around it.
It's got concertina wire on top of that.
It's controlled in and out.
The Daily Mail report, citing Russian media, saying the unidentified person died at an Irkutsk district hospital after allegedly contracting plague, a claim Russian authorities have not confirmed.
It comes four days after 28-year-old researcher Darya Shipilova died after working at Siberia's Anti-Plague Institute.
Russian officials insisting her death was caused by pneumonia of unknown origin, and that no plague has been detected.
At the same time, some Russian news organizations reporting about the suspected outbreak has been disappearing.
Independent Russian outlet The Insider reporting federal network Ren TV deleted all five of its posts about plague in the region, while Kommersant removed both a Telegram post and an online article referring to US concerns about a possible outbreak.
CNN, meanwhile, reporting on new disease control measures at a maternity hospital in the region.
A 29-year-old woman telling the outlet she was forced to switch hospitals at 40 weeks pregnant after new quarantine restrictions prevented her husband from being with her during labor.
She says staff checked her temperature, examined her tongue, required a mask and hand sanitizer, and gave her a questionnaire titled, quote, "Checklist for Suspected Highly Dangerous Infectious Disease Plague." Now, international pressure mounts on Russia to explain exactly what happened at that laboratory.
Anytime you hear that there's some disease that infected someone in a lab anywhere in the world, you're gonna be concerned about it, especially given recent events not so long ago.
That said, it would be irresponsible for me here to sit and speculate because we just don't have all the information yet.
I think it's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world, and the more we can learn about what happened, then I ...
The, the better all of us can be in a position of responding.
But I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate about what this might or might not be or what this is or what this isn't.
Secretary Rubio's call for more transparency coming as the specific facility where Shipilova worked draws scrutiny of its own.
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen, author of Biological War: A Scenario, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, telling PBS NewsHour on Monday the institute has a history extending well beyond ordinary public health research.
This is an anti-plague institute, so they're supposed to be studying medical countermeasures to plague, like vaccines, antibiotics.
But this particular institute, we know from Soviet defector scientists, was used for biological weapons engineering during their illegal program.
We also know the State Department believes that that illegal biological weapons program has continued.
And so what they're really worried about is what is going on.
I mean, look, the facility is, has six-foot-high fences around it.
It's got concertina wire on top of that.
It's controlled in and out.
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