Trump to Discuss Siberian Plague Case with Putin as US, UN Seek Transparency

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will speak "very soon" with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the reported plague death of a laboratory technician in Siberia, as Washington and the United Nations urged Moscow to provide transparency. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the World Health Organization both called on Russia to share details. Russian authorities denied imposing anti-plague measures and said the cause of death for 28-year-old Darya Shipilova was "undetermined," with postmortem tests finding no plague microorganisms. Reports from local outlet People of Baikal suggested she may have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube, with up to 200 contacts quarantined, but officials dismissed these claims as untrue. Plague is a bacterial disease, with pneumonic plague being the most contagious form and potentially fatal if untreated. Trump offered US assistance Monday, but Russia's health watchdog responded by highlighting measles outbreaks in three US states and a fatal plague case in New Mexico, while an international plague conference is scheduled in Irkutsk later this month.