A laboratory worker at Russia's Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute died of severe pneumonia of unknown cause, followed by reports of a second employee's death, and the World Health Organization has requested that Moscow provide more information.
More than 60 employees of the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Irkutsk, Russia have been locked inside the facility, nearly 200 contacts are under medical observation, the hospital in Shelekhov District has been sealed off, and local judicial authorities have opened a case on suspicion of violating safety regulations.
On October 2, an employee at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Russia died. The institute's director, Balakhonov, had participated in a China-Russia cross-border epidemic prevention drill in Fuyuan, Heilongjiang, from August 24 to 27. The drill's content included responding to plague imported from abroad, reporting epidemic information, and conducting joint risk assessments.
The female researcher infected at the Irkutsk anti-plague research institute is being hospitalized in Shelekhov with symptoms of severe pneumonia.