Trump-Putin call planned ‘very soon’ as Russia reports pneumonic plague-related death
Marco Rubio on Tuesday also urged Russian authorities to share more information about death of a lab worker
President Donald Trump is set to talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin “very soon” in the wake of growing suspected pneumonic plague fears stemming from the death of a female lab worker in Siberia.
When asked by a journalist about the plague-related incident, Trump said that a phone call with Putin has been planned to discuss the alleged death, adding “so far, we are in very deep discussions. We’ll be able to report about it probably tomorrow.”
Marco Rubio on Tuesday also urged Russian authorities to share more information about the mysterious death of a lab worker.
"I think it's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world," Rubio told reporters in Iceland.
"We're watching it very closely, hour by hour."
The incident occurred last week when 28-year-old researcher Daria Shipilova died from a 'pneumonia of undetermined' origin at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and Far East.
Her death ignited the serious concerns related to bubonic plague, sweeping across the country. However, on Tuesday, Russian health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor issued an update regarding plague-related concerns.
As per the latest update, the authorities had not documented the cases of plague among people who had come into contact with the Siberian plague institute laboratory worker who died on Friday.
Even they have not found any microorganism in the dead body of the researcher linked to her work.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, also responded to these reports that it “is aware of and closely monitoring reports of a suspected case of pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region of Russia that resulted in a death.”
According to WHO, the risk to public health is very low as per the based information and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus requested the Russian officials to share precise and transparent information over the type of pathogen involved and the cause of severe pneumonia.
