You might have heard by now of the scientist in Russia, 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, who died on Oct. 2 of an unknown illness. Shipilova worked in a lab at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, an institution founded in the 1930s to control and prevent—you guessed it—plagues. Russian health authorities have since quarantined the hospital where Shipilova died, along with staff at the institute and anyone else who came in contact with her. These are the facts.
And then there are the murkier details, as well as the rumors. Shipilova was diagnosed with a pneumonia of unknown origin, per Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian public health agency. A governor of a neighboring republic said Shipilova died "possibly from the plague," and a Russian journalist wrote on his Telegram that Shipilova had broken a test tube before she got sick, reported Science. There are reports of a second worker at the institute who contracted pneumonia, per the AP, and reports that several hospitals have been placed under quarantine, per NPR. Although the Russian government announced that "test results showed no presence of dangerous infectious disease pathogens in any of the contacts," the head of Rospotrebnadzor traveled to Irkutsk to meet with the regional anti-epidemic commission, CNN reported. The Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute, meanwhile, has not responded to journalists' questions.
Many of this journalist's questions—such as "Is there a plague happening in Russia?" and "Should I be freaking out?"—don't have clear answers. But before your mind fills with images of eerily avian plague doctors, these are the questions we can answer, at least for now.
What kind of plague are we talking? The one that caused the Black Death?
Yes, that plague. The bacteria Yersinia pestis causes the infectious disease we call plague. Y. pestis lurks inside the rat flea, which lurks on the rat, whose adjacency to us can make plague spread like wildfire. The plague has never been eliminated, but it poses far less of a threat now that it can be treated with antibiotics.
There are three main types of plague: bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic. Bubonic plague, which infects your lymph nodes, is the most common and most survivable. It is also the likely cause of the three major pandemics in human history: the 6th-century Plague of Justinian, the 14th-century Black Death, and 19th-century plague that has no name but originated in Yunnan, China. Septicemic plague infects your blood and can lead to organ failure. Pneumonic plague, which infects your lungs and causes severe pneumonia, is the least common and deadliest of the three. While bubonic and septicemic plague are generally caused by flea bites, pneumonic plague is generally passed person to person. Symptoms, which include fever, aches, fatigue can start within 24 hours of infection and kill a person within days.
What are the chances of this turning into an outbreak, or an epidemic?
Based on what is currently known, experts say the risk is extremely low. If Shipilova died of pneumonic plague—which, again, it is unclear if she did—this form is the least easily transmitted of the plagues. Infected people become extremely sick quite quickly, limiting the amount of time they might be out and about infecting others. And pneumonic plague is less transmissible than a disease like COVID-19. You wouldn't get it from being in the same room as someone, but rather by caring for someone who is infected, experts explain on Your Local Epidemiologist. The Rospotrebnadzor reported that more than 90 percent of contact tracing has been completed, presumably among other workers at the lab as well as Shipilova's community—and found no evidence of plague. If these reports can be trusted, this is reassuring news.
If done right, contact tracing can quash an outbreak before it happens. In July 2025, a man in Arizona died of pneumonic plague, which he apparently contracted from a sick cat. Public health workers soon identified 46 people who might have been exposed, such as household members, coworkers, and staff at the hospital, and gave all of them a weeklong course of antibiotics. No one became ill.
Why isn't there a plague vaccine?
There are vaccines, actually, but they're not totally effective against the plague in general and quite ineffective for pneumonic plague in particular. Antibiotics are much more effective, provided they're given within 24 hours of infection. As such, the World Health Organization does not recommend plague vaccines unless you regularly find yourself in a plague-adjacent situation, such as working at an anti-plague institute. Russian health authorities have said that Shipilova was vaccinated against the plague.
Should I be worried that Russia is studying the plague?
Not necessarily. It makes sense that an anti-plague institute would need to study the plague to prevent its spread. The world has, understandably, invested more in bioresearch facilities in the wake of COVID-19. "Diagnostics, vaccine development and surveillance for antibiotic resistance all require laboratories that hold and study the live organism," University of Birmingham immunologist Zania Stamataki said in a statement shared by the Science Media Center. "This work is vital to prepare against outbreaks." Plague occurs naturally where the institute is located, which is to say that Siberia is a likely place for anti-plague institute to be.
So it sounds like we shouldn't be that worried?
No, at least not about an outbreak of plague.
... Should we be worried about something else?
I am a mere messenger—an aggregator of directly reported news—but here is what I have learned which might be more alarming than an improbable epidemic. I will list them here in what seems to me to be least alarming to most alarming.
Experts have raised questions about the biosecurity measures at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East. Take the rumors that Shipilova was infected after breaking a test tube. "Having worked in high-containment laboratories, I know that handling dangerous pathogens involves multiple layers of protection, strict procedures, safety cabinets, airflow systems and careful procedures carried out by well-trained staff," University of Reading microbiologist Simon Clarke said in a statement. "It is not unheard of for pathogens to escape from labs, but an awful lot must have gone wrong for a lab worker to be infected by a broken test tube," he added. If Shipilova had broken a test tube, she should have received antibiotics immediately after exposure. In Vox, Dylan Scott argues that the incident in Irkutsk reveals a need for more robust safety protocols around research of this kind.
Experts have also raised questions about the lack of clarity coming from Russia, which has yet to announce the cause of Shipilova's death. The WHO has been in contact with Russian authorities to verify their reports and the test results. Some public health experts suspect Russian authorities have already sequenced the pathogen that may have killed Shipilova, and they are curious why these results have not been released. The U.S. and other countries have called on Russia for more transparency around Shipilova's cause of death and the circumstances surrounding it, an ask that the famously transparent government will surely be happy to fulfill. No one hates secrecy more than Russia!
Some experts have raised an obvious question: Was the plague being studied as a potential bioweapon? Russia has maintained an active biological weapons program in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, per The New York Times. The convention is the global norm, with 189 countries signed on as of 2025, including the United States and Russia. But the treaty has no way to verify that countries are actually complying with this agreement, and the Soviets continued developing a biological warfare program after ratifying the convention in 1975. And labs in the United States work with deadly pathogens for infectious-disease research. In 2009, the University of Chicago biologist Malcolm Casadaban died of plague after being exposed to a strain of Y. pestis in his lab. Allegations of biowarfare, however, are the most extreme and least verifiable rumors raised from these recent events, so I don't think we need to dwell on them. Even if it were happening, there is simply nothing we could do about it. I hope that's reassuring, just like the fact that the least worrying scenario here is a literal outbreak of plague.
