Trump says US will help Russia after plague deaths in Siberia | Today’s news
President Donald Trump said the US is investigating a suspected plague case in Russia after the death of a lab worker and will offer assistance to authorities there.
“We’re looking at it very strongly, we just heard about it,” Trump told reporters Monday. “They call it pneumonia. And pneumonia, you know, years ago you could treat pneumonia more easily. The germs and germs have gotten disproportionately stronger, but we’re going to help them,” Trump said. “We will help them as much as we can.
The president’s comments followed the death of a worker at an anti-plague research institute in Russia’s Siberian region of Irkutsk that led to the alleged tracing of nearly 200 contacts.
The 28-year-old lab worker died last week after contracting severe pneumonia. Russian media said she may have been exposed to the bacteria that causes pneumonic plague after she broke a test tube at the institution. Russia’s public health agency Rospotrebnadzor disputed the account.
The woman was diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown cause, and extensive tests did not reveal any microorganisms linked to her work, Interfax quoted the agency as saying. The expert commission sent to the institute did not find any accidents with pathogenic microorganisms, which confirms the findings of safety monitors, she said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that he did not think the case was “a cause for alarm, but it is a reason to focus and a reason to watch it — and we are doing that.” Rubio said the administration is aware of the information provided by the Russian government.
Nearly 200 people who may have had contact with the woman have been placed under medical supervision, the Moscow Times reported. Rospotrebnadzor said the contacts were undergoing daily laboratory testing and that two cases of Covid-19 and two rhinovirus infections had been detected, according to Interfax. It said no other infectious diseases were found and none of the contacts developed signs of an infectious disease.
The epidemiological situation remained stable, Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev told Axios. Russian authorities have not confirmed that the woman had the plague.
Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Pneumonic plague can spread between people through respiratory droplets and can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed promptly, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’re going to help anybody who has a problem like that,” Trump said Monday, adding that it was a “big problem for Russia.”
With help from Jessica Nix and John Harney.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
