This image is not directly related to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
This image is not directly related to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

The White House said it is monitoring a suspected pathogen leak at a plague research facility in Siberia, Russia, that left one researcher dead and prompted the quarantine of those who had contact with her.

A Trump administration official, cited by US online outlet Axios on Sunday (local time), said the administration is "aware of the situation and monitoring the outbreak while reviewing response options."

The incident occurred at the Irkutsk Plague Control Research Institute in Shelekhov, a city near Irkutsk Oblast, where a 28-year-old woman broke a test tube containing plague pathogens on Sept. 25. She was hospitalized with severe pneumonia symptoms on Tuesday and died overnight between Thursday and Friday.

Russia's federal consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor announced Sunday that the researcher had died after being diagnosed with "pneumonia of unknown cause."

Alexei Tsydenov, the head of the Republic of Buryatia, which borders Irkutsk Oblast, said plague was "a possibility" as the cause of death. Local media reported that about 200 people at the Shelekhov hospital where the researcher had been transferred were placed under quarantine observation, and that a maternity hospital in the city was also put under quarantine.

Gennady Onishchenko, a former head of Rospotrebnadzor, told the TASS news agency that the infection was "more likely not plague," adding that even if it were confirmed as plague, low temperatures would prevent large-scale spread.


choijh@heraldcorp.com