Map shows countries hit by plague as Russian lab worker dies

Filed 14h ago · Via Newsweek · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Investigations

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Joop van Bilsen for Anefo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A woman working at a plague research institute near Irkutsk, Russia, died after reportedly breaking a test tube of live bacteria while collecting samples; Russian authorities have not officially confirmed plague as the cause. At least 197 contacts have been placed under medical isolation and four Irkutsk hospitals have been quarantined for three weeks.

Russia's health watchdog says no lab accidents occurred, while a regional governor denies she traveled where state media claimed, even while conceding she likely died of plague. The WHO's own map, meanwhile, lists no Russian plague cases between 2019 and 2025, a gap the agency confirmed only after the story had already run.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

When a government's sanitary agency insists nothing happened at the lab, but the hospitals nearby get locked down for three weeks anyway, you don't need a microscope to see what's going on. Everybody involved seems to agree on one thing: it isn't their jurisdiction. That's a tidy trick if you can manage it, blaming the next county over for your own test tube.

Source: Read the original at Newsweek → Scored: Investigations · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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