Having survived a global pandemic just six years ago, the news of yet another potential infection outbreak sent waves of terror around the world.
On October 6, 2026, Russian media outlets reported the demise of a 28-year-old female laboratory technician, who worked at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East in the town of Shelekhov.
She was later identified as Darya Shipilova and was reported to have passed away on the night of October 2 at a regional hospital after receiving treatment for three days.
According to a Russian agency, she had fallen ill at work. She was then diagnosed with the “pneumonia of unknown etiology.”
“No micro-organisms associated with the employee’s professional duties were detected in samples taken from the patient,” the organization asserted, adding that the “epidemiological situation” in the region was stable.
Image credit: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The disease is suspected to be the pneumonic plague, a severe, rapidly developing lung infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is treatable with antibiotics but can lead to respiratory failure and shock if left untreated.
The infection was part of the infamous Black Death. This devastating global plague pandemic swept across Eurasia and North Africa in the 1300s, wiping out an estimated 30% to 60% of the area’s population.
Despite the agency’s reassurances, nearly 200 people who could have made contact with the Shipilova have reportedly been isolated and placed under medical observation. Two of them have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and two with rhinovirus, the most common cause of the common cold.
According to a Russian outlet, the number includes staff members and patients at the hospital where Shipilova passed away. It is currently under quarantine, and employees are reportedly sleeping on the floor and on chairs.
The report also claimed that the deceased told her doctors before her demise that she was working with animals infected with the plague and had accidentally broken a test tube containing a dangerous bacterium while collecting biological samples for diagnostic testing in the laboratory.
The outlet added that authorities have opened a criminal case for violating sanitary-epidemiological rules, resulting in a demise due to negligence.
Image credit: Sefa Karacan/Anadolu via Getty Images/Win McNamee/Getty Images
Reacting to the situation, US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House, “We’re looking at it very strongly. We just heard about it.”
“They’re calling it pneumonia. You know, years ago, you could treat pneumonia easier. The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger, disproportionately. But we will help them.”
“Anybody who has that kind of a problem, we’re always willing to help. I hate to see them having it. It’s a rough disease,” the POTUS added.
In response, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “It is always very good when mutual assistance is offered.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio chimed in that “it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world.”
“Maybe it’s bigger than we thought. We don’t know, but I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate. We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour,” he added.
Image credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Getty Images
In an interview with PBS News, American investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen made a bombshell revelation about the institute where Shipilova worked.
“They’re supposed to be studying medical countermeasures to plague, like vaccines, antibiotics,” Jacobsen said.
“But this particular institute, we know from Soviet defector scientists, was used for biological weapons engineering during their illegal program. We also know the State Department believes that that illegal biological weapons program has continued.”
“I mean, look, the facility has six-foot-high fences around it. It’s got concertina wire on top of that. It’s controlled in and out. The idea that this worker broke a test tube and suddenly contracted pneumonic plague, which is an inhalation plague, does not entirely add up for somebody like me,” she concluded.
She also added that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) capacity to determine the risks of a potential outbreak depends “entirely on Russia’s ability or willingness to cooperate.”
The Russian authorities reportedly put five more medical facilities in the Irkutsk region of Siberia under isolation and canceled a few public events as part of a “comprehensive set of anti-epidemic measures.”
However, they found no more cases of the pneumonic plague, and the “public health risk according to the general population appears to be low,” according to the WHO.
Image credit: CNN
Alexander Chepurnov, a virologist in Siberia, told CNN that the preventive actions were taken to prevent onward spread at the earliest signs.
Another virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization of Canada told the outlet that while pneumonic plague is dangerous, it is not as highly transmissible through the air as coronavirus and requires heavy exposure to a high bacterial load to make someone sick.
“This case here seems like a rare lab accident and is unlikely to go much further,” Prof Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in the UK, told The Guardian.
“Although it is true that pneumonic plague is directly transmissible, the contacts of the primary case are known and can be treated if they show any sign of infection.”
In July 2025, Arizona reported its first pneumonic plague demise since 2007, two days after the male patient, who was occupationally exposed to ill cats, was admitted to a Coconino County hospital with complaints of abdominal pain, chest pain, and dry cough.
Amid the grim circumstances and the experts’ assurances, the internet did what it does best: come up with dark-humor jokes that best describe the situation.
Here are some of the best memes that went viral online after the Russian plague headlines hit the news.
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