US closely monitoring case of lab worker who ‘possibly’ died of plague in Siberia, says Rubio

The Guardian, Mon 5 Oct 2026, Pjotr Sauer and Luke Harding 

Quarantine measures in place in several hospitals in eastern Russia amid uncertainty over death of Darya Shipilova 

Darya Shipilova died on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in
Shelekhov. Photograph: Social Media

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said the US is closely monitoring the case of a Russian laboratory worker who died last week after a reported accident at a plague research institute in Siberia.

“We’re watching and monitoring it closely,” Rubio said on Monday before leaving for a trip to Europe. “I ⁠don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an ⁠eye on it.”

Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee at the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, became ill at work. She died two days later on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov.

It remains unclear how she became unwell. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media have suggested Shipilova may have been infected after a mishap at the laboratory. Officials have not publicly confirmed that account.

Local media have reported that the institute has subsequently been locked down, with staff forced to sleep on the floor and on chairs. “They’ve been isolating everybody since Friday – more than 60 people,” one relative, Roman, told the news portal Siberia.Realities.

He said family members were allowed to drop off food at a checkpoint while tests were carried out inside the building. Similar quarantine restrictions have been placed on several other hospitals in and around the city.

Rubio, citing what ‌Russians have released about the death, said it seemed a worker in the lab became ​infected and there was concern the disease may have spread internally.

“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously,” he said. “But like anything else, something like that gets out, it just quickly spreads.”

Senior Russian officials have added to public disquiet by sending conflicting messages. Alexey Tsydenov, the head of the Buryatia region, which neighbours Irkutsk, initially wrote that Shipilova had died of plague, before editing his post to say she had “possibly” died of the disease.

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said Shipilova died from “pneumonia of unknown aetiology”. It insisted that tests found no micro-organisms linked to her professional work and described the “sanitary and epidemiological” situation in the area as stable.

Authorities in the nearby city of Baikalsk briefly urged residents to avoid travelling to Shelekhov and surrounding settlements after what they said was unofficial information about a possible plague infection. They later deleted the post from social media.

“There are no obvious changes to daily life on the streets, but people are worried and anxious. Locals are angry that they are not being told anything,” said Elena Trifonova, a journalist with People of Baikal, an exiled Russian media outlet specialising in Siberia.

Despite the lack of a confirmed diagnosis, precautionary measures appear to have been introduced across the region. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Monday that several hospitals in Irkutsk had been placed under quarantine.

The outlet confirmed that staff from Shipilova’s workplace, the Irkutsk Anti-plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, had been kept inside the institute since 2 October.

Patients at Irkutsk city clinical hospital No 1 and the Ivano-Matreninskaya children’s hospital said relatives were not being allowed to visit and people inside were not permitted to leave.

On social media, local residents described some of the precautions being introduced.

Ulyana Gavryunina, who went on Monday to one of Irkutsk’s main maternity hospitals for a routine check-up on Monday, said doctors refused to allow her mother in, citing a quarantine imposed over the suspected plague case. Gavryunina said staff member checked her for flu-like symptoms and asked her to fill out a screening form for infections, on which “plague” was listed. She posted a photograph of the form on Instagram.

Elsewhere, a mask requirement was introduced at the Irkutsk aluminium smelter in Shelekhov. The plant’s director, Artyom Fominykh, called it a preventive measure, saying: “Better safe than sorry.” Over the weekend several public events in Irkutsk were cancelled.

Shipolova’s death has prompted intervention from senior federal health officials. Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor and the country’s chief sanitary doctor, travelled to Irkutsk on Friday.

She attended an emergency meeting of the regional sanitary and anti-epidemic commission over what officials called a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection”.

Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, urged residents to remain calm after meeting Popova to coordinate the response. “All identified contacts have been placed under medical observation. As of today, none is showing signs of illness and laboratory tests have returned negative results,” he wrote on Telegram.

Kobzev made no reference to reports that a laboratory worker had died.

US politicians have raised concerns about the incident, which follows longstanding and unfounded allegations by the Kremlin that Ukraine has secretly carried out biological weapons research with the support of Washington.

A Republican representative, Don Bacon, a senior member of the House armed services committee, wrote on social media: “I remember hearing from anti-Ukraine voices about their so-called bio labs. It was Russian disinformation ops at their best. But in reality it is Russia with the bio labs.”

Plague remains endemic in parts of Siberia and the Russian far east, where the bacterium persists naturally among wild rodents and their fleas.
But human cases in Russia are rare. Before the suspected Irkutsk case, the country’s last recorded human infection was in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy in Siberia’s Altai Republic contracted plague after helping butcher a marmot.

“This case here seems like a rare lab accident and is unlikely to go much further,” Prof Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, in the UK, said. “Although it is true that pneumonic plague is directly transmissible, the contacts of the primary case are known and can be treated if they show any sign of infection.”

He added: “Plague carries a huge history and is still present in many parts of the world, including Russia, but the living conditions associated with previously spread plague are no longer generally true, antibiotics are available and its potential is therefore limited.”

The victim was working at the anti-plague institute in 

the Siberia city of Irkutsk. AFP via Getty Images.

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"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - 

(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)

- Download Page -

WHO chief 'rethinking' after Mugabe honour outrage

Yahoo – AFP, Ben Simon, October 21, 2017

WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had praised Zimbabwe's health
coverage -- but announced a rethink after critics observed its president tends to get
 his treatment abroad (AFP Photo/MIGUEL ROJO)

Geneva (AFP) - The head of the World Health Organization said Saturday that he was "rethinking" his decision to name Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe a goodwill ambassador, as global outrage over the move mounted.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the UN health agency, had this week asked Zimbabwe's 93-year-old authoritarian leader to serve in the role to help tackle non-communicable diseases like heart attacks, strokes and asthma across Africa.

The decision triggered confusion and anger among key WHO member states and activists who noted that Zimbabwe's healthcare system, like many of its public services, has collapsed under Mugabe's regime.

"I’m listening. I hear your concerns. Rethinking the approach in light of WHO values. I will issue a statement as soon as possible", Tedros, a former Ethiopian health minister, said on Twitter.

Tedros took charge of WHO in July, becoming the first African to lead the powerful UN agency.

In announcing the appointment in Uruguay's capital this week, Tedros had praised Zimbabwe as "a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the centre of its policies to provide health care to all."

'Sickening'

Britain on Saturday joined the widening chorus of critics, calling the decision "surprising and disappointing, particularly in light of the current US and EU sanctions against him."

"We have registered our concerns with WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus," a foreign office spokesperson said in an email.

"Although President Mugabe will not have an executive role, his appointment risks overshadowing the work undertaken globally by the WHO on Non-Communicable Diseases", the spokesperson added.

Zimbabwean activist and human rights lawyer Doug Coltart said on Twitter that a "man who flies to Singapore for treatment because he has destroyed Zimbabwe's health sector is WHO's goodwill ambassador."

Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, is in increasingly fragile health and makes regular trips abroad for medical treatment.

"Mugabe doesn’t trust Zimbabwe health care he destroyed (he travels abroad) but @WHO’s Tedros names him ambassador", the head of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, added in a tweet.

UN Watch, a group primarily known for defending Israel at the world body, called the decision "sickening."

"Amid reports of ongoing human rights abuses, the tyrant of Zimbabwe is the last person who should be legitimized by a UN position of any kind," the group's executive director Hillel Neuer said in a statement.

WHO had earlier on Saturday pointed to Zimbabwe's record on tobacco, NCDs and Tedro's desire to engage senior politicians as justifications for the Mugabe honour.

"Dr. Tedros has frequently talked of his determination to build a global movement to promote high level political leadership for health," spokesman Christian Lindmeier said in an email.

"Zimbabwe has ratified the WHO FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) in 2014 and the government has launched a levy fund for NCDs to generate revenues for health promotion, including NCD prevention and control," he added.

UN agencies often name high profile personalities as goodwill ambassadors to draw attention to their work, including actress Angelina Jolie with the refugee agency UNHCR.

The naming of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador for the 

World Health Organization has triggered widespread outrage (AFP Photo/Phill Magakoe)

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"Dual Channeling" + "Unexpected Change" (4) - Mar 18 - 19, 2017 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version "Change")

"...Light and Dark Balance

The light and dark balance on the planet is starting to rearrange itself and is going to create more wild cards. Wild cards are "unexpected shifts", things that are often shocking in ways that are not positive or negative, but rather are changes in the paradigm of what was. They often push the future, both in consciousness and science.

There are several coming in the form of Human Beings making changes in ways and in places you don't expect. There's one that is way overdue in New York City at the United Nations. It's an old organization with wonderful ideas about helping the planet, but stuck in its own old-energy politics. What will happen there? If you don't see much soon, it may actually cease functioning. Wildcards are not guaranteed. They are timed to match the free choice of those around them. That's what makes a wild card - totally unexpected events. Think of this: An organization set out to create peace on Earth may become more dysfunctional and even fail, or a wild card may come and restructure it all at great controversy and almost no funding. That's what wild cards do.

You may find it in business, in banking or in politics. New ideas never tried before that are radical may exist soon. Expect these kinds of things, but they have to grow on you. There may be some starts and stops. There may be seed planters who don't make it. Then others may come in and make the seeds start growing. That means ideas that were not accepted yesterday may actually be accepted now or in the future. This is because as you evolve, you will see the new wisdom in them. This is all part of the growth process through time.

So this is where you are currently in the change pattern. You are at the beginning of the growth process. All this with a new grid, with very few time fractals to undo, and with a clean slate from historic energies. Are you ready?

Listen: No prophecy at all has been written about what is happening on your planet now. Zero. There are no elders anywhere or channellers anywhere at the moment giving you good, solid prophecy about what's next. This is because you just went through the tunnel of old energy, the old prophecies, and are barely free of them. This is a new energy that you have never experienced before on the planet. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read the prophecies.

According to the best and most popular and accepted prophecies of your time, where are you supposed to be right now? The answer is "dead".

Where is the earth supposed to be right now? The answer is "radioactive". No one can exist on a planet that has had a massive nuclear exchange, no matter what your movies say. It's "goodbye" to Humans on the planet. The whole idea of a post-apocalyptic earth is a fantasy. You don't live when there's that much radiation. It affects everything in the air, in the oceans and the very dust that would have been kicked up by thousands of nuclear explosions would be circling the planet and blocking the sun for decades. Dark - life gone.

Dear one, that is the apocalypse that never took place. Instead, you stand here with your kids and a new planet with hope. You may wonder why I'm enamored with all of you, but you don't really know it, not yet.

In a generation or two, somebody will raise a hand and say, "I couldn't help but notice we're different from those before." This is how long it takes, especially to rewrite the old consciousness of expected doom. Two generations may have to go by before someone raises a hand to say, "Look, the sun's coming out [a metaphor]. It's different." Humans are slow to change, but they may notice attitudes changing and that they have a new road to walk on.

So you want to know what your task is at the moment, dear old soul? Your task is to encourage those around you using your compassion and balance. When you hear them talk about the fact that they cannot get ahead, or that things are horrible on the planet, or what the news said last night, speak up in a loving way. When timed correctly. you can say, "I'm really not onboard with that. I feel we have a positive time ahead. Things are different. Can't you feel it, can't you see it? I think we've got a brighter future. We just need to be patient with it and stop wallowing in the drama others are giving us that influences us and makes us fear everything."   .."

Belgium admits it kept quiet about 'tainted' eggs probe

Yahoo – AFP, August 5, 2017

A laboratory assistant for the Dutch food safety board carries out tests on
eggs on August 1, 2017 (AFP Photo/Piroschka van de Wouw)

Brussels (AFP) - Belgian officials admitted Saturday they knew in early June there was a potential problem over insecticide-contaminated eggs but kept it secret because of an ongoing fraud investigation.

"We knew since early June there was potentially a problem with fipronil in the poultry sector," Katrien Stragier, a spokeswoman for Belgium's food safety agency (AFSCA), told Flemish television VRT.

"We immediately launched an investigation and we also informed the prosecutor because it was a matter of possible fraud," she added.

"From that point on the secrecy of the inquiry took precedent. We understand that people have questions about public health and we are trying to answer them," she added.

Contacted by AFP over the past few days, the prosecutor in Antwerp handling the case refused to give out any information on the specific orders of the investigating judge.

Belgian supermarkets have cleared eggs from the shelves of supermarkets as a precautionary measure while awaiting the results of tests.

In Germany and the Netherlands several million eggs from Dutch farms have already been recalled.

German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt pressed the authorities, particularly in Belgium and The Netherlands, to clear up the situation.

"Someone has clearly proceeded with criminal intent to contaminate (the eggs) with a banned product," Schmidt told the daily Bild.

Dutch officials closed down 180 businesses earlier in the week and after tests, the Dutch food authority (NVWA) said 138 poultry farms -- about a fifth of those in the country -- would remain closed.

One batch of eggs posing in particular posed "an acute danger to public health", the agency said.

Eggs from another 59 farms contained high enough levels of the insecticide, fipronil, for the food authority to warn against any children eating them.

Fipronil is commonly used in veterinary products to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks. It is banned from being used to treat animals destined for human consumption, such as chickens.

In large quantities, the insecticide is considered to be "moderately hazardous" according to the World Health Organization, and can have dangerous effects on people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.

Farmers throw eggs at a poultry farm in Onstwedde, Netherlands, on August 3, 2017
after the Dutch Food and Welfare Authority (NVWA) highlighted the contamination of
eggs by fipronil, a toxic insecticide outlawed from use in the production of food (AFP
Photo/Patrick HUISMAN)

Related Article:

Tainted Dutch eggs scandal widens across borders

Suppressed WHO Reports on Rise of Cancer and Birth Defects in Iraq. Cover-Up of War Crimes Committed against the Iraqi People

Global Research, Michel Chossudovsky - BMJ, September 14, 2013

An initial WHO study completed in 2004 had documented the impacts of depleted uranium.It was suppressed.

The WHO  has now suppressed a second report undertaken jointly with Iraq’s Ministry of Health.  The joint WHO-MoH study pertained to the prevalence of congenital birth defects. It was scheduled to be released in November 2012.

In suppressing these reports, the WHO is complicit in covering up extensive war crimes committed against the people of Iraq.

Poor reproductive and birth outcomes in Iraq, since the U.S. invasion, have received much global attention (1, 2). A joint study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MoH) began in May-June 2012 to look at the prevalence of congenital birth defects in several governorates of Iraq (3) and was scheduled to be released in November 2012 (4).

In March 2013, a BBC documentary, (“Born under a bad sign”), offered a glimpse at the results of the WHO report. A MoH official told the BBC that “All studies done by the Ministry of Health prove with damning evidence that there has been a rise in birth defects and cancers”. Other MoH researchers confirmed that the situation with birth defects constitute a “big crisis” for the “next generation” of Iraqi children (5).

In May and July 2013, researchers petitioned the WHO and MoH to release their report (6, 7). In response, the WHO indefinitely postponed the release of that report.

This turn of events has bewildered many, especially in light of the WHO’s past failure to report similar data adequately. In November 2006 the British Medical Journal published an article entitled “WHO suppressed evidence on effects of depleted uranium (DU), expert says”. (8).

Furthermore, recent revelations by Hans von Sponeck, the former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, suggest that WHO may be susceptible to pressure from its member states. Mr. von Sponeck said that “The US government sought to prevent WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where DU had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers” (9).

Serious study design flaws, principally the WHO’s avoidance of any inquiry into causation of Iraqi birth defects, is also alarming (10). Nevertheless, saving Iraqi children’s lives requires the immediate release of this indefinitely postponed WHO report.

References:

1- Al-Sabbak M, Sadik Ali S, Savabi O, Savabi G, Dastgiri S, Savabieasfahani M. 2012, Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 89(5): 937–944.

2-Human Rights Now, 2013, “Innocent New Lives are Still Dying and Suffering Report of a Fact Finding Mission on congenital birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq in 2013” http://www.brussellstribunal.org/article_view.asp?id=1016#.UggHoJIsltk

3- World Health Organization, Congenital birth defect study in Iraq: frequently asked questions: http://www.emro.who.int/irq/iraq-infocus/faq-congenital-birth-defect-study…

4- Morrison, S. (2012, October 14). Iraq records huge rise in birth defects. The Independent U.K.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/…

5-BBC News “Our World”, Born Under a Bad Sign. Duration 30 minutes. Produced by Yalda Hakim and Melanie Marshall. Aired on Sunday 24 Mar, 2013. Web address:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W5TvnYaeN4

6- A Call to Release the WHO Report on Iraqi Birth Defects. Saturday 18 May, 2013. Multiple authors. Web address:

http://www.zcommunications.org/a-call-to-release-the-who-report-on-iraqi…

7- To the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health: (New signatures added). Tuesday 30 July, 2013. Multiple authors. Web address:

http://www.zcommunications.org/to-the-world-health-organization-who-and-…

8- BMJ 2006; 333:990.2 “WHO suppressed evidence on effects of depleted uranium, expert says.”

9- Pilger, J. (2013, May 26). We’ve moved on from the Iraq war – but Iraqis don’t have that choice. The Guardian U.K.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/26/iraqis-cant-turn-ba…

10- Chowdhury, S. (2013, Jul 17) WHO’s Iraq Birth Defect Study Omits Causation. Inter Press Service News Agency.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/07/whos-iraq-birth-defect-study-omits-causatio/

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