In Russia, a woman who worked for a plague research institute near Irkutsk in Siberia had told her colleagues she had accidentally broken a test tube with live bacteria when she was collecting samples for testing. The researcher, a 28-year-old female laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia, in the town of Shelekhov, died after being diagnosed with a pneumonia of “unknown” origin, according to Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian agency that handles infectious disease. More than 200 people are reportedly in isolation after the Russian laboratory worker dedicated to studying the plague and other infectious diseases died of an undisclosed illness. Russia's authorities have not confirmed that the plague was the cause of death.
