Donald Trump offers Vladimir Putin help to contain deadly Russian 'plague outbreak’
Donald Trump has offered to help Vladimir Putin stop a suspected plague outbreak from spiralling out of control.
The suspected outbreak in Siberia has left a young laboratory worker dead and prompted authorities to place close to 200 people in isolation.
Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old lab assistant at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, died on Thursday after falling critically ill earlier in the week.
A hospital in the city of Shelekhov was quarantined, and all individuals who had been in contact with Ms Shipilova were placed under medical observation.
On Monday, the US President said he would "help" the Russian leader contain the suspected outbreak, adding he was "concerned" by the news coming out of the east.
Mr Trump said: “Well, we’re looking at it very strongly. We just heard about it, and they call it pneumonia.
“And pneumonia, you know, years ago you could treat pneumonia easier.
“The microbes and the germs have gotten stronger disproportionately, but we’ll help them.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was “watching and monitoring" the situation in Russia closely.
The senior Trump ally said: “There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously.
“But like anything else, something like that gets out and could quickly spread. So we’re watching and monitoring it closely.”
He added: "I don't think it's cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause to just keep an eye on it. And we're doing that."
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The State Department has confirmed it is moniotring the spread alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other partners.
The Kremlin has issued just one statement on the suspected outbreak so far, urging Russians to only trust updates they receive from official government bodies.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday: "One should rely on official statements from Rospotrebnadzor rather than listening to various rumors and speculation."
Regional Governor Igor Kobzev has refused to identify the illness in public, describing it only as "a dangerous infectious disease".
Reports have emerged antibiotics have run out in the Irkutsk region, with alarmed residents rushing to pharmacies and medical facilities for supplies.
Senior Russian epidemiologist Mikhal Favorov dismissed the broken test tube account as implausible, suggesting it pointed to a cover-up, The Moscow Times reported.
"It's laughable. Someone working at the anti-plague Institute in Irkutsk wears a protective anti-plague suit," Mr Favorov said.
"If you break a test tub, the likelihood of infection is actually very low. In short, it doesn't matter to the general public – they'll believe the 'dropped test tube story'."
Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and manifests in three main forms: bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic.
All forms are treatable with antibiotics, particularly if caught early.
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