Pneumonic plague scare in Russia after researcher’s test tube breaks; nearly 200 quarantined

Nearly 200 people have been placed under medical observation in Russia's Irkutsk region after a laboratory worker died following severe pneumonia, with reports suggesting she may have contracted plague at a research facility in Siberia. Russian authorities, however, have not publicly confirmed that the woman died from pneumonic plague and have described the illness as a “particularly dangerous infection” and pneumonia of “unknown aetiology”.