Russia denies lab worker died of plague as quarantine in Siberia stays in place

Russian health authorities said on Monday that a laboratory assistant at an anti-plague institute in Siberia who died last week did not have plague, even as quarantine restrictions remained in place across multiple hospitals in the region. Daria Shipilova, 28, a staff member at the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk, may have contracted pneumonic plague after a test tube broke in the laboratory, regional outlets reported, citing unnamed sources close to regional security services. Authorities placed more than 60 institute employees under isolation inside the building from Friday. A relative of one employee told Siberia.Realii they slept on the floor and chairs without beds, with food parcels passed through a checkpoint.