HealthRussian lab worker’s death sparks plague fears as unverified claims spread online

The death of a 28-year-old worker at Siberia’s Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute has triggered online fears of plague, although the World Health Organization assesses the public health risk in Russia as low. Unverified accounts of how she fell ill, including an alleged test-tube laboratory accident, are circulating alongside misleading posts and out-of-context videos.