Trump and Putin to discuss plague outbreak in Russia soon
Photo: US President Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (Getty Images)
The US president and the Russian dictator will hold a phone call in the near future to discuss a suspected case of pneumonic plague in the Irkutsk region, reports the Associated Press.
Trump says he will speak with Putin “very soon.” When asked about US intelligence assessments, Trump replied that the US is conducting “very deep discussions” on this topic.
“We’ll be able to report about it, probably tomorrow,” he added.
The day before, Trump stated that the US is ready to help Russia, calling the plague a “rough disease” whose pathogens have become stronger, “like an army.”
The World Health Organization has assessed the risk of the disease spreading beyond Russia as “very low.” The organization reported that it is in contact with Russian authorities.
Officially, Russian authorities continue to attribute the death of a female employee at the anti-plague institute to pneumonia of unknown origin.
The plague case occurred in early October. On the night of October 2, a 28-year-old lab technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute died at a hospital in Shelekhov. According to local media, she had accidentally broken a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen a week earlier. Approximately 200 people who had come into contact with her were quarantined.
On October 6, the US Embassy in Moscow issued an official warning regarding a suspected case of pneumonic plague. Americans were reminded that they should leave Russia immediately, and those who had recently been in the region were advised to monitor their health for 14 days.
