The rumors have been swirling for days. That a young lab worker died of suspected plague in Siberia. That the authorities feared an epidemic might spread and had quarantined hundreds of people.
While concrete information is scant, conflicting reports abound. The name of the lab worker. Her age. If she died or what she may have died from.
Russia’s consumer watchdog, which oversees disease control, has said only that “an employee of an anti-plague institute in the Irkutsk Region” was “diagnosed with pneumonia” of unknown origin.
That has not stopped the rumors — fueled in part by contradictory statements from local officials as well as by a widespread distrust of the Russian authorities, who have in the past concealed emergencies, like the AIDS outbreak in the 1980s — from making international headlines.
With the Kremlin on Monday urging people to ignore speculation, here is what to know.
The official line
The Russian consumer watchdog did not name the employee. In a statement carried by state news outlets and published in pieces, the agency said that “no microorganisms linked to her professional activity were identified in the patient’s samples” and that “no health changes related to infectious pathology” had been identified among her contacts.
A commission also checked the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk for compliance with “biological safety requirements,” the agency said, and “no emergency situations involving pathogenic microorganisms were identified.”
The Irkutsk institute conducts research on a number of infectious diseases, including plague, which is caused by a bacterium. While there are a few hundred cases globally every year, mainly in Africa, plague can be easily treated with antibiotics if caught early.
In its statement, the consumer watchdog added that the “sanitary and epidemiological situation” in the Irkutsk region was “stable.”
The statement was issued on Sunday, two days after initial reports emerged about something more concerning happening in the Irkutsk region, which is about 2,600 miles east of Moscow.
Contradictory statements
The first signs of a potential issue came on Friday, when the Irkutsk regional governor said that he had held “an extraordinary meeting” with Russia’s chief sanitary physician about “a suspected case of a particularly dangerous infection in a resident.”
“All identified contacts” of the resident “have been placed under medical observation,” the governor, Igor I. Kobzev, wrote in a statement on social media.
That day, the mayor of Shelekhov, a town close to the city of Irkutsk, the regional capital, said that he had received “many inquiries” from residents and could confirm that the local hospital’s inpatient department was closed for quarantine. The mayor, Maksim N. Modin, said the hospital’s laboratory had suspended operations. He urged residents “not to spread rumors.”
The governor of the neighboring Buryatia region, Aleksei Tsydenov, was the first to officially raise the prospect of plague. He said on Friday that “the woman who died of plague in the Irkutsk region” had not visited Buryatia. His post on a state-linked messaging app was later updated to read “possibly died of plague.”
The following day, the authorities in Baikalsk, a town about 50 miles from the city of Irkutsk, cited “unofficial information” about “a case of plague” in a statement advising against travel to Shelekhov. That statement, on Telegram, was later deleted.
So were at least three posts by Ren-TV, a federal news network, including one that named the deceased lab worker and reported that she had researched plague.
Mr. Modin, the Shelekhov mayor, said on Monday that the consumer watchdog had the situation “under strict control,” adding, “a set of anti-epidemic measures is being carried out.”
Theories and speculation
Local news media have painted a bleaker picture. Lyudi Baikala, a regional outlet, reported that in addition to the Shelekhov hospital, other clinics and a maternity ward had been closed in Irkutsk.
Pavel Stepanov, a local journalist, posted on his Telegram channel that a young laboratory assistant had broken a test vial and died. That statement could not be independently verified. In a subsequent post on Monday, Mr. Stepanov defended his reporting and questioned why some government agencies and Kremlin-friendly news outlets had deleted statements and stories about Irkutsk.
The authorities, he said, “should investigate whether all this is not a sabotage by our enemies, who are acting with increasingly sophisticated methods.”
Any reason to be scared?
Officials in the United States and the European Union have said they are aware of and monitoring the reports about Irkutsk.
A potential lab leak and a feared disease prompted some comparisons with Covid-19, but experts noted that even if plague were confirmed, the risk would be limited. Human cases of plague occur each year and are relatively simple to treat.
Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, England, said in an emailed statement that the Irkutsk case “seems like a rare lab accident and is unlikely to go much further.”
Oleg Matsnev, Michael Mason and Koba Ryckewaert contributed reporting.
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