plaguetracker.com evidence snapshot v1
url: https://outbreaknewstoday.substack.com/p/russia-189-people-under-observation
captured_at: 2026-10-04T16:49:57.767Z
title: Russia: 189 people under observation after lab worker dies of possible pneumonic plague

According to Russian media, officials in Siberia’s Irkutsk region have placed nearly 200 people under medical observation after a laboratory worker died from plague.The employee, a woman in her 20s, from the of the Irkutsk anti-plague institute contracted the disease, but authorities are not clear how.One possibility is she returned from a work trip to Buryatia, where a plague outbreak was reported on the border with Mongolia. Another version states that she accidentally broke a test tube containing a dangerous bacterium in the lab while collecting biopsy specimens for diagnostic purposes.She was treated for severe pneumonia at Shelekhov Hospital where she died.All clinic staff were isolated, and the institution itself was quarantined.