Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old laboratory technician at the Irkutsk plague research institute in Siberia, died on the night of October 1–2, 2026, at Shulkhov hospital, days after being admitted with severe pneumonia symptoms.
Following the incident, 197 people who came into contact with her were traced, and 189 of them were transferred to medical institutions for observation. Hospital wards in Shulkhov were placed under quarantine, patient admissions were halted, and a criminal investigation was opened on suspicion of safety violations leading to death.
Three different versions of how the infection occurred have circulated publicly: exposure from a test tube containing the bacterium that broke in the laboratory on September 25, 2026; infection during a work trip to the Republic of Buryatia; or exposure upon returning from vacation in Thailand. None of the versions has received official confirmation. The head of the Republic of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, denied that Shipilova visited his region, and edited a statement he had published to say she "may have died of plague" instead of his original definitive assertion.
Local authorities have avoided naming the disease, and Irkutsk region governor Igor Kobzev referred in his statement only to an "especially dangerous infection".
Meanwhile, information that had already been published began disappearing: the municipality of Baikalsk deleted a recommendation to avoid traveling to Shulkhov two hours after posting it, and social media posts were removed. Following these reports and fears of an epidemic, residents in the area began purchasing antibiotics, while locals reported people in protective suits on the streets and masks being distributed in kindergartens. It was also reported that agents of the Federal Security Service, the FSB, accompanied ambulances.
Russian epidemiologist Mikhail Favorov cast doubt on the test tube version, explaining that laboratory workers are required to wear protective suits, making infection from such an incident unlikely. Favorov estimated, following the arrival from Moscow of Rospotrebnadzor head Anna Popova, that "they won't tell us what really happened". On the other hand, former service head Gennady Onishchenko argued that the cold weather and the winter hibernation of rodents raise doubt as to whether this is plague at all.
The World Health Organization has documented close to 4,000 suspected or confirmed cases of plague in ten countries between 2019 and 2025. The last documented case in Russia was recorded in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy was infected and recovered.
