US closely monitoring plague researcher's death in Siberia

The US is closely monitoring the case of a Russian lab technician who died at a plague research center in Siberia, with President Donald Trump saying Washington is looking "very strongly" at the incident. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there is no cause for alarm but the situation warrants focus. The woman, in her late twenties, died of "pneumonia of undetermined etiology," according to Irkutsk's governor, who said no micro-organisms linked to her work were found in her samples. Unconfirmed reports suggest she may have broken a test tube or visited a region with plague among wild rodents, with nearly 200 contacts under medical observation. The Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, founded over 100 years ago after a 1920s outbreak, studies Yersinia pestis, which causes pneumonic plague and can spread person-to-person. Experts say antibiotics can treat it, and while the pathogen could theoretically be studied for bio-weapons, lockdowns like those for Covid are not expected.