Lab Researcher’s Plague Death Sparks COVID Like Scare

Article by Kumar Published on: 7:27 am, 5 October 2026

The recent death of a laboratory researcher in Siberia, Russia is now creating panic across the globe due to concerns of a potential plague outbreak after media houses started reporting about the incident which happened in special anti plague institute located in the Irkutsk region.

As per reports, a young laboratory worker named Daria Shipilova died few days ago after she was directly exposed to pneumonic plague, which is a very deadly type of bacterial infection, following an accidental drop of a glass test tube.

A few days later, she got extremely sick with severe chest issues and high fever. She was quickly rushed to the Shelekhov district hospital near Irkutsk city. Doctors placed her on a ventilator machine to help her breathe, but her health dropped very fast and she passed away inside the hospital ward.

Because of this tragic death, health officials in Russia immediately declared a health emergency. Right now, nearly 200 people are placed under strict medical observation and quarantine. More than 100 individuals are locked in isolated hospital rooms so the deadly virus or plague bacteria does not spread to other places.

The government also cancelled all big public gatherings and events across the Irkutsk region to prevent any major outbreak. Law enforcement officers opened a criminal case against the laboratory management to investigate if safety rules was broken.

The incident has brought back the fears of the COVID pandemic which caused lakhs of deaths across the world during 2020 and 2022. At that time, there were similar allegations that the virus broke out from a laboratory in Wuhan city of China due to failed laboratory experiments.

Meanwhile, some medical experts advised that there is no need to worry because plague is not an airborne disease but spreads rapidly through droplets during close contact with the infected person.