Russia accused of covering up plague outbreak as travel warnings and news of lab death disappear

Russian officials have been accused of covering up details of a reported plague outbreak in Siberia, after official travel warnings to the affected zone were deleted hours after being published.On Oct.3, officials in Baikalsk in the Irkutsk region urged residents not to travel to the nearby town of Shelekhov, where a scientist reportedly died of pneumonic plague over the weekend.The lab technician, 28-year-old Daria Shipilova, had been working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East when she fell sick after reportedly dropping a test tube containing the deadly pathogen.But the travel warning was deleted just two hours later, according to the independent media outlet, People of Baikal.The pro-government television channel REN TV also deleted five posts about lockdowns related to the plague, the outlet reported.It was reported earlier that Shipilova may have fallen ill after returning from a trip to Buryatia, on the border with Mongolia.Alexei Tsydenov, a regional official, had earlier put out a statement saying that Shipilova had died of the plague, but hadn’t traveled to Buryatia.He later amended the post to say that the woman had “possibly died of plague.”On Tuesday, Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said no plague cases had been detected among the 187 staff who had come into contact with Shipilova in the past 10 days.“This included identifying the widest possible circle of individuals who had been in contact with the patient and arranging for them to be placed under medical observation in hospital with daily laboratory tests,” the watchdog said.On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said that Russia had told it there were no plague cases in Irkutsk, although it was unclear if this meant that Moscow was saying Shipilova’s death was unrelated to plague infection.“Laboratory testing identified two cases of Covid-19 and two cases of rhinovirus [common cold] infection,” the statement read.“No other infe...