New York: The United States is on its toes amid concerns over a possible public health threat following the death of a laboratory worker at a Siberian plague research institute.
So much so that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was monitoring the situation “hour by hour”, and has sought more information from Russia.
A 28-year-old woman working at the plague research institute in Russia’s Irkutsk died of pneumonia on Friday. How she contracted severe pneumonia is yet to be determined. Not taking chances, Russian authorities decided to quarantine dozens of people, which and sparked concern on social media.
“We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour,” Rubio said in Iceland on Tuesday, adding that Russia was expected to share more information with the international community.
Rubio further said that the US had “measures” available to assist Russia if the situation warranted a more serious attention.
US President Donald Trump on Monday offered to help Russia, describing the situation as a “big problem” for Moscow.
Moscow appreciated Trump’s offer, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor was handling the situation and will provide further information.
Rospotrebnadzor reassured the public that the situation was under control, and that no case of plague had been detected among people who had come into contact with the deceased worker. Also, no infectious disease had been reported among staff at the institute over the past 10 days and extensive testing of the woman’s body found no microorganism linked to her work.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Russia is yet to officially respond to its request for information about the plague death.