World

WHO Presses Russia for Answers on Second Possible Illness as CDC Monitors Plague Concerns

The World Health Organization is pressing Russia for additional information about the unexplained death of an employee at a Siberian plague research institute and reports that a second worker may also have developed pneumonia of undetermined cause, deepening international scrutiny of an incident that U.S. health officials continue to monitor. The development comes one day after V.I. Consortium reported that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was monitoring the death of a 28-year-old employee at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute while saying there was no indication of a broader threat to the United States. What has changed since then is the level of detail WHO says it still needs from Russian authorities. WHO Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Management Maria Van Kerkhove said Wednesday that the agency does not know what organism caused the illness that killed the laboratory worker, Darya Shipilova, on October 2. The agency has asked Russia to clarify the c...