Donald Trump has offered to help Vladimir Putin as Russia scrambles to contain a suspected outbreak of deadly airborne plague in Siberia.
‘Well, we’re looking at it very strongly,’ the president said when asked about the disease. ‘We just heard about it, and they call it pneumonia.’
‘And pneumonia, you know, years ago you could treat pneumonia easier,’ he added.
‘The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately, but we’ll help them,’ Trump concluded, referring to Russia.
The offer comes as Russian authorities race to play down the death of Daria Shipilova, 28, a staff member at the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk. Moscow insists she died of ‘pneumonia of unknown etiology’, not plague.
However, nearly 200 people are reportedly under medical observation and at least four hospitals in the region have been closed for a three-week quarantine, according to local reports.
More than 60 of her colleagues remain isolated inside the institute.
Regional outlets, citing sources close to the security services, report the young woman may have caught pneumonic plague after a test tube broke in the laboratory.
‘The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately, but we’ll help them,’ Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday afternoon
Putin’s regime is seeking to downplay Shipilova’s death on October 2, yet widespread suspicion of a state cover-up is rapidly spreading
Health officials pictured in the Irkutsk region wearing hazmat suits during the plague response, with a mask mandate also put in place
Lab worker Darya Shipilova, 28, died in Siberia of pneumonic plague after breaking a test tube
Pneumonic plague attacks the lungs and passes easily from person to person through respiratory particles, though it can be cured with antibiotics when treated promptly.
Shipilova was hospitalized with symptoms of severe pneumonia in Shelekhov, a town near Irkutsk, on September 29 and died last week.
Russia’s health watchdog claims expanded testing found no microorganisms linked to her work and denies there was any accident at the institute.
Yet Alexei Tsydenov, the head of neighboring Buryatia, first confirmed she had died of plague before walking it back to ‘possibly’ days later.
Authorities canceled public events in Irkutsk and law enforcement reportedly opened a criminal investigation into health safety violations. Amid the media frenzy, the regional Governor Igor Kobzev described the situation as stable.
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio said Monday that Washington is ‘watching and monitoring it closely’.
Rubio admitted that while such a suspected outbreak could ‘quickly spread’ there was no immediate cause for concern, particularly because there are no direct commercial flights between the US and Russia.
‘There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously,’ Rubio told reporters on Monday before traveling to Iceland.
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A researcher from Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute during a field trip
‘But like anything else, something like that gets out and could 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 a cause to just keep an eye on it. And we’re doing that,’ he added.
