White House ‘monitoring’ suspected plague outbreak in Russia after lab worker dead, hundreds quarantined

Source: New York Post

The White House is “aware” of a suspected plague outbreak in Russia and is “monitoring the situation” after a young lab worker was killed and some 200 others reportedly forced into quarantine, an official said. Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old researcher at an anti-plague research institute in Russia’s eastern Irkutsk region, reportedly died after breaking a test tube containing the plague pathogen, although Russian officials have refused to say whether or not she contracted the disease. The Trump administration “is aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options,” an official told Axios.