Russia Dismisses Second Suspected Plague Report as "Disinformation"; WHO Demands Moscow Respond "Regularly"

WHO Director-General Tedros and Maria Van Kerkhove, Director of the Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, on October 8 publicly demanded that Russia provide a formal explanation regarding the death of a 28-year-old female employee at a plague research institute in Irkutsk, Siberia, from "pneumonia of unknown cause," and respond to reports concerning a second suspected case. According to Al Jazeera, Tedros said at a press conference that WHO had "received reports from two media outlets—one of which is a Russian outlet—about a second employee at the institute suffering from pneumonia of unknown cause" and had "demanded that Russia respond."

Russia's response was to shut down information. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said at a press conference that "the vast majority of what the media has reported about this situation is disinformation" and asked that the official statements of Russian health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor be taken as the reference. Russia had acknowledged the previous day that the female employee had died after being diagnosed with "pneumonia of unknown etiology"; Rospotrebnadzor said no infections had been found among the institute's employees, but did not disclose the causative agent behind the death.

"We don't know how she was infected," Van Kerkhove said at a WHO briefing, "and we don't know the 'causative agent' behind the death either." She added: "We need timely information. We need regular information. We need answers to the follow-up questions we have already raised." Tedros's wording was more direct: "We cannot ignore any reports coming (from the media)."

The core of the incident lies in a death case of undetermined cause inside a facility that researches high-risk pathogens. When asked by reporters whether the infection could have originated from biological weapons, US President Trump replied "we don't think so" and said "the Russian side said the situation is already very well under control." But he acknowledged that "Russia hasn't said anything either," and indicated that the US and Russia are engaged in "very in-depth discussions" on this matter, with further information expected "possibly tomorrow." Before the assessment by US intelligence agencies is made public, an information black hole has already taken shape: Peskov has used "disinformation" to block outside questioning, the Russian side has remained silent on the causative agent of the first death, and has declined to confirm the second suspected case.

The US CDC described the threat posed to the United States by the suspected pneumonic plague case as "extremely low." CDC Director Erica Schwartz said on October 8 at a Wall Street Journal Health Future event that the CDC is working with other agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Department of Defense to monitor travelers departing from the region, and has set up health screening stations at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Citing Reuters, Al Jazeera reported that a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services said that approximately 200 people travel each year from this Siberian region to the United States.

However, the CDC's "extremely low threat" assessment is built on a base of only around 200 travelers per year, while WHO's call for "timely" information—whose urgency stems from an unexplained death inside a plague research facility—has run head-on into Moscow's closed posture. Direct flights between Russia and the US have been suspended since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022. Against the backdrop of Peskov using "disinformation" to block outside questioning, the Russian side's silence on the causative agent of the first death, and its refusal to confirm the second suspected case, the commitment to "regular" disclosure has no credible landing point.