MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has offered assistance to Russia in a case of plague institute laboratory worker's death in Siberia.
Dozens have been quarantined following the death of Russian lab technician Darya Shipilova last week due to suspected plague case.
The 28-year-old woman, who was working at an anti-plague research institute in the Siberian region of Irkutsk, died on October 2 after developing severe pneumonia.
She reportedly contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube and died at a hospital in Shelekhov.
The hospital was quarantined, and at least 197 people were put under observation. Several other local hospitals began enforcing a three-week quarantine, and public events in the city were cancelled.
Former head of the national public health agency Rospotrebnadzor stated that the cause of the death is 'most likely not the plague, but even if confirmed, there will be no spread of this disease.' No one under observation had tested positive for infection, according to Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev.
'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 easier. The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger, disproportionately, but we'll help them. We'll help them as much as we can,' he added.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, 'If something like that gets out, it can quickly spread. So we're watching and monitoring it closely. I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and the cause to just keep an eye on it and we're doing that.'
State Department officials have stated that they are monitoring the situation and were working with Russian officials on the outbreak.
The European Commission said that it was monitoring the outbreak alongside the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
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