Former CDC Director Warns Russian Plague May Have Been 'Manipulated'
Russia’s response to the death of lab worker Darya Shipilova, 28, is under scrutiny.
The former director of the Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) has raised doubts about the Russian laboratory responsible for a possible plague fatality potentially manipulating the infectious disease. Robert Redfield, who served as the CDC director during the onset of the COVID pandemic, expressed his concerns over Russia's reaction to the demise of Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old worker at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia.
Russia's health regulator, Rospotrebnadzor, reported that Shipilova passed away from "pneumonia of unknown aetiology," although unverified claims suggest she may have inadvertently shattered a test tube containing live bacteria responsible for pneumonic plague, causing widespread alarm. Redfield told NewsNation that if Shipilova had been working in a plague lab and encountered an accident, she would have been expected to receive antibiotics as per established protocols.
He added, "If the plague she was working with had been tampered with to render it insensitive to antibiotics, that could account for why they may not have been effective." Approximately 200 individuals Shipilova interacted with are under observation, and hospitals, as well as a maternity unit in the region, have been placed under quarantine.
The United States, European Union, and World Health Organization have all urged Russia to provide transparency regarding the case.
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