US sends Moscow formal note demanding plague case information

The US State Department has sent Moscow an official note demanding information about the suspected plague case in Irkutsk, after days of public requests went unanswered, Italian news agency ANSA reported. President Donald Trump said he had a call with Vladimir Putin planned, though he gave no date, and said he was confident the case did not involve a biological weapon. "We'll find out soon," he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no call between the two presidents had been arranged and that he had no information about the US démarche. Peskov said most media reporting on the case was false, dismissing in particular persistent rumours of a second death, which he denied. Russia's health minister urged the public not to panic, and the country's health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, repeated that there was no epidemic risk to the population of Irkutsk or the surrounding region.

Moldova's health ministry said it was monitoring the situation together with the World Health Organization and that the case posed no risk to the country, according to ProTV Chișinău.

The mother of Darya Shipilova, the laboratory technician who died, disputed the official account that her daughter had broken a test tube containing the pathogen. "I know the truth. Even hypothetically, it is simply impossible to spill the contents or break the test tube," Svetlana Shipilova, herself a researcher, said. Friends of the dead woman also said they doubted the broken-test-tube explanation.

The US State Department separately reiterated its travel warning for Russia, citing the case, The Hill reported, after the US embassy in Moscow said it was aware of media reports linking the death to the outbreak fears. Russian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into potential workplace safety violations at the institute, The Independent reported. Alexey Tsydenov, head of the neighbouring Republic of Buryatia, initially said in a statement that the woman had died of plague, then revised his statement to say she might have been infected.

Two people who had contact with the worker tested positive for Covid-19, not plague, and two others tested positive for a common cold virus, while tests on her other contacts came back negative, Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported. Anna Popova, head of Rospotrebnadzor, travelled to the region before the weekend to meet the governor and other officials, according to the same report.

The European Commission said it is monitoring the case very closely, in touch with experts from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The World Health Organization said it was in contact with Russian health authorities to verify the event and the laboratory tests under way, in line with International Health Regulations, and rated the public-health risk as low for Russia and very low for the European region.

The worker, 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, a technician at Russia's Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, near Irkutsk, died in intensive care after severe pneumonia officials described only as being of unknown origin. At least 197 people with direct or indirect contact with her have been placed under medical isolation, and several hospitals and a maternity facility in the area remain under a three-week quarantine, The Independent reported.